Remapping the Memory of Slavery: Leonora Miano’s Theatrical Dream, Red in blue trilogie

Abstract

In her three-volume theatre project, Red in blue trilogie (Arche, 2015), Cameroonian writer Leonora Miano gives shape to three distinct moments in the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its resulting trauma: African kings negotiating with European conquerors (Révélation); slave revolts in the Caribbean (Sacrifices); and diasporic Africans seeking to return to their origins (Tombeau). We can situate her only dramatic texts within the trajectory of several novels in which she seeks to recall the impact of the slave trade on contemporary Africans’ sense of themselves and their history. Through ritualistic staging and an aesthetics of pan-Africanism, she intends to jar the memory of the African continent and build a bridge to its diaspora. Envisioning a staging of this work in Paris, where Miano currently lives, also suggests the complexities of representing black subjectivity within the current conventions of French theatre.

Ce qui vit n’est pas seulement ce qu’on peut voir. C’est tout ce qu’on conserve. Tout ce qu’on chérit. Tout ce qu’on se rappelle. Ce qui s’en est allé, mais qu’on peut convoquer à l’envie pour se régénerer. [What’s alive isn’t only what can be seen. It’s everything that preoccupies us. Everything we cherish. Everything we remember. What went away, but what can be called forth when we want to, in order to be regenerated.] ¹

(Musanga in Miano 2006, 224)