L’ESPACE TOTALITAIRE À TRAVERS TRAVELS IN NIHILON (1971) D’ALAIN SILLITOE, UN SOSIE EN CAVALE (1986) D’OANA ORLEA ET MORT D’UN POÈTE (1989) DE MICHEL DEL CASTILLO
TOTALITARIAN SPACE IN TRAVELS IN NIHILON (1971) BY ALAIN SILLITOE, UN SOSIE EN CAVALE (1986) BY OANA ORLEA AND MORT D’UN POÈTE (1989) BY MICHEL DEL CASTILLO

Summary/Abstract: In Oana Orlea's Un sosie en cavale, in Mort d’un poète by Michel del Castillo and in Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe, various symbolic places attempt to portray in an allegorical way what would have been totalitarian dictatorships that spread to central and eastern Europe between 1947 and 1989, during the Cold War. In each of these novels, the historical experience of Romania is a central reference but in a veiled, blurred form. Doumarie in Mort d’un poète and Nihilonia in Travels in Nihilon are countries that do not exist. They do not appear on any map. In Un sosie en cavale, the reported events take place in another imaginary land that is never named. These three books, however, describe the same type of totalitarianism. They refer to the same series of events, to the same philosophical and political conception of the world. How do these stories conceive of these totalitarian spaces? How do they portray them as terrifying metaphorical places, frightful, where peoples are locked up and enslaved forever?

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