Cartografie del dolore. «la narratrice ferita» di Amélie Nothomb

Abstract

This paper aims to explore how literature has shaped the experience of illness through the lens of eating disorders. The starting point is the theoretical starting point is the model developed by Arthur Frank in The Wounded Storyteller, which offers an interpretive framework based on three narrative typologies (restitution, chaos, and quest) and four body types (disciplined, mirroring, dominating, and communicative). These analytical tools are applied to a text that stands as emblematic of the subject in question: The Biography of Hunger by Amélie Nothomb. In this work, anorexia emerges as the central figure of a layered narrative of distress, where deep tensions flow between identity and image, aphasia and expression. The aim is to demonstrate to what extent this pathology can be read as a form of embodied language, capable of translating pain into voice and the body into writing.