Un lieu oublié du monde : L'image de l'autre et de l'ailleurs dans Le dernier Lapon par Olivier Truc

• Main Author: Gärdemalm, Lena
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för sprÃ¥k (SPR) 2016
• Subjects: Forty Days Without Shadow; Olivier Truc; postcolonialism; colonialism; anti-colonialism; exoticism; othering; Sami; Lapland; Humanities; Humaniora; sami; lapon
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-52787

The title of this essay is â€A place forgotten by the world – the image of the Other and the Elsewhere in Forty Days Without Shadow by Oliver Trucâ€. Olivier Truc is a French-born journalist living in Stockholm, where he works as a correspondent for Le Monde and Le Point. He has also produced TV documentaries and non-fiction books. Forty Days Without Shadow is his first fictional work, a crime novel published in 2012. The story is settled in the Norwegian and Swedish parts of Lapland, and Sami people are in focus. In this essay, a postcolonial reading is used to interpret the novel, based mainly on the fact that the Sami are or were victims of Scandinavian colonization. The aim of the essay is therefore to examine whether the novel comprises colonialist or anti-colonialist attitudes, or perhaps both, and whether it contains exoticism and othering of the Sami. In particular it is examined how Lapland as a geographical place is described, and how Sami people are depicted compared to people of other origins in the novel. Another fact that is discussed, is how stereotypical characterisation is a common trait of crime novels, an aggravating circumstance for the analysis. The conclusion is that the novel has a strong anti-colonialist perspective, seen mainly in the treating of themes like the colonization of Lapland and its effects on some of the characters. At the same time, the physics of the Sami are described in recurring terms such as “high cheekbonesâ€, whereas the faces of the normative Norwegian and Swedish characters are not described in the same way. In certain places in the novel there is a colonialist focalization which contributes to exoticism and othering of Sami people.