Legami intergenerazionali e identificazioni inconsce nel romanzo L'ottava vita (per Brilka) di Nino Haratischwili

The article aims to investigate the representation of the transgenerational transmission of traumatic experiences in the novel Das achte Leben (für Brilka) (2014) by the Georgian-born author Nino Haratischwili, by drawing on psychoanalytic and epigenetic studies on the subject, as well as cultural studies on memory and post-memory. The article highlights psychic processes such as phantasmatic projections and telescopic identifications of the unconscious, which denote a disturbance in genealogy – ascribable to unprocessed grief and trauma – and transmitted from one generation to another on an unconscious level as a void. At the same time, the essay also examines the therapeutic journey that needs to be undertaken by the descendants of the family at the centre of the work in order to re-engage with their past history. If, on the one hand, the narrative is full of gaps and circular structures (a symptom of an unspeakable trauma that cannot be expressed and always returns to itself), on the other hand, the blank pages at the end, as well as the circular structure of the frame, have a positive meaning – that of (post-)memory, which attempts to return to its origins in order to create a new, meaningful narrative and, with it, a new life.