Inhabiting a Name, Inhabiting a Skin: Leonora Miano’s Tels des astres éteints

Abstract

In her novel Tels des astres éteints, Léo-nora Miano creates an onomastic game haunted by questions of belonging and identity. Overinvested with meaning, the forenames of the three protagonists, all products of the African diaspora, reveal something of their past lives and their destinies. The lack of a surname also testi-fies to their deracination, sought after or suffered. The « intimate drama » of these drifters, which flirts with madness, even, is expressed in part by the issue of naming, enabling the writer to speak of the difficul-ty of inhabiting a «black skin» today, but above all revealing the impossibility of defining any identity.