Texts and bodies of recluses. Antoine Volodine's morphologies of prison (starting with Antonio Gramsci)

Abstract

Referring to Antonio Gramsci’s Lettere dal carcere (1926-1937), this contribution examines Antoine Volodine’s Le post-exotisme en dix leçons, leçon onze (1998), a fictional work ascribable to carceral literature. Gramsci’s Letters serve as an exemplary model for analysis of prison writing, capable to reveal some morphological nuclei that are recurrent as narrative topoi in fictional and non-fictional carceral stories, especially, the narration 1) of incarcerated body; 2) of altered experience of space and time; 3) of reveries; 4) of communication modes and strategies between prisoners.