Between latency, evidence and transcendence: On the use of the photographic in Olga Tokarczuk’s work

Tokarczuk’s literary treatment of photography reflects her narrative procedures. In her Nobel Prize speech, she presents a photograph of her mother in such a way that it becomes a significant punctum (R. Barthes). This results in the multi-dimensional narrator preferred by the author. Her works confirm this use of the photographic, which consists in the fact that contingent things prove to be evident (“House of Day, House of Night”), past glimpses into the camera lens take on transcendence (“Bizarre Stories”) or an evidential photograph simultaneously conjures up the mysterious and serves as a crime motif (“Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead”).

This article is written in German.