Mediating testimonial narratives in Jean Hatzfeld’s Dans le nu de la vie

Abstract

Testimonies have a sociological function: in order to achieve their goal, they have to be heard and validated by the group, and to become part of a collective narrative about the past. Even though they tell a personal story, they always relate both with other narratives about the same historical event and with their envisioned public, thus engaging in a dialogue with the society for which the narrative is meant. The case of Jean Hatzfeld’s Dans le nu de la vie offers an example of a publication of testimonial texts where verbal exchanges were actually involved in the process of formulating, sharing and writing traumatic individual experiences. The object of this article is to analyse how the mediation of the author, who listens to the survivors’ stories and inserts them in his own work, gives rise to a shared narrative where different voices both combine and confront each other.