Jeu de masques dans une Antigone postcoloniale contemporaine : histoire ou Histoire ?
Playing with Masks in a Contemporary Postcolonial Antigone: Immediate or All-Time History?

Summary/Abstract: Author of a literary work “inspired by myths and rooted in immediate history”, according to Bernard Magnier, the Congolese novelist and playwright Sylvain Bemba writes in 1988 his own version of Antigone: Noces posthumes de Santigone (Black Wedding Candles for Blessed Antigone). A worldwide recognized symbol of resistance, Antigone has featured in various theatrical adaptations– especially in the African drama, where she often serves as a mask representing modern and contemporary history. Although Bemba is obviously interested in the contemporary history of African peoples, his Antigone engages history in a much wider sense. A hymn to historical memory and also to drama, his strikingly metatheatrical play disguises immediate history under not a single but several masks worn by the characters, thus visualizing the power of drama to contribute to the conservation of historical memory.

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