“Je crus d’ailleurs que nous avions traversé une barrière”: la porosità dei confini in "L’illusion poétique" di Ananda Devi

Abstract

Ananda Devi’s collection L’illusion poétique (2017) brings together three previously published short stories that explore the theme of the physical, metaphysical and social boundaries that drive the characters apart. This article analyses the shift from the imposition of a clear-cut separation to a state of porosity (Iovino 2014) between the characters and the landscape. In particular, bodies become hybrid, composite and collective, using the senses—and especially sight—to open up fissures and cross barriers. Landscapes, too, take on an active role by interacting with humans and non-humans. Thus, intermediate spaces are formed in which bodies and landscape interpenetrate and renew themselves.