Narrative medicine, health literacy, and the archive of migration traumas and translingualism in Igiaba Scego’s "Cassandra in Mogadishu"

Abstract

This essay analyzes Igiaba Scego’s diasporic, choral, and translingual pathography Cassandra in Mogadishu (Cassandra a Mogadiscio) from the perspective of the construction of an archive of migration trauma (Pnrr/The spoke 10/5 2022-2025). The first part of the essay identifies the archival and iconic power of pathography, the cypher for which lies in the oscillation between obfuscation and vision triggered by the ocular disease of the narrator, a female “wounded storyteller” of narrative medicine. The second part analyzes the interaction of pathography with health literacy and narrative medicine by interweaving Italian L2 didactic theory with the autobiographical narratives of migrants, which provide a privileged point of view for dealing with the topic of health.