Wajdi Mouawad’s Anima : transforming trauma through the deconstruction of the human–animal divide

In the following, I discuss Wajdi Mouawad’s second novel, Anima (2012), with a view to the intersection of human–animal relationships and the processing of trauma in the aftermath of colonial violence. Firstly, I address how Anima’s engagement with the animal gaze contributes to questioning a hard divide between humans and animals, both by highlighting the animality existing within humans and by attending to the multiple ways animals exist and build worlds. The second part of the article explores different ways in which humans and animals are connected through trauma in Anima and how they come to process it together. Lastly, I consider the extent to which addressing trauma in this way leads Anima’s protagonist towards a possible transformation rather than a return to his former self. Where the deconstruction of the human–animal divide is concerned, the article engages with Jacques Derrida’s L’animal que donc je suisFootnote1 and Donna Haraway’s critique of Derrida in When Species Meet,Footnote2 while also drawing on the work of trauma and memory scholar Dominick LaCapra and anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.