The limits of White hospitality in Marie Darrieussecq’s La Mer à l’envers

Abstract

In Necropolitics (2019), migratory politics figure as one of the primary manifestations of the enmity Achille Mbembe considers characteristic of our time. It is within this context that we will discuss Marie Darrieussecq’s novel, La Mer à l’envers (2019), in order to probe the potential of the French protagonist’s relationship with a Nigerien migrant as a path towards founding “a relation with others based on the reciprocal recognition of our common vulnerability and finitude” (Mbembe 3). The novel explores the possibilities and limits of hospitality through the chance meeting between a White, middle-aged French woman, Rose, and a teenage Nigerien migrant, Younès, who is brought aboard her cruise ship after the shipwreck of his vessel. The author does not shy away from ambivalence as she interrogates the affective and cognitive difficulties felt by the non-exemplary French woman. By examining the conditions of hospitality presented by Darrieussecq and the role of the author-protagonist-readership trio’s Whiteness, we will discern the novel’s potential for illuminating a new way of relating to one another, beyond the projection of fears and the violence of borderization.