Voci sovversive e gerarchie familiari in "They Make a Desert and Call It Peace" di Marina Warner

Abstract

This essay examines the way Marina Warner's radio play They Make a Desert and Call it Peace (2014) and its fictional reworking of contemporary news such as the Bloody Sunday report and the investigation of the Gaza Flotilla Raid of 30 May 2010. After a presentation of the development of radio plays in England, the essay shows what interest they have generated among feminist writers and how Warner uses the voice of women in her play, which also serves as a rewriting of the biblical story of Salome, to question the transmission of the memory of traumatic events such as the Bloody Sunday. The play overturns the point of view from that of the master narrative, emphasized by media and institutional voices, to that of unheard witnesses. The essay analyses the way Warner works on voices and multivocality to offer a comparison between the different points of view, that of a father, a former soldier who has taken part in violent missions, and his daughter’s: the author shows how she questions the repression systems of governments and the narration of mainstream history taking the defense of minority groups in her society.