ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the nexus between memory and translation in two graphic memoirs by the Lebanese-French artist Zeina Abirached: Mourir partir revenir: Le jeu des hirondelles (2007/2020) and Je me souviens Beyrouth (2008). In both books, Abirached ‘translates’ her childhood memories related to the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) into images, words, and a narrative. While the analysis of Mourir partir revenir focuses on the role of a particular object, a tapestry, which I will consider both as a mnemonic object and as a translational phenomenon, the investigation of Je me souviens Beyrouth is centred on the book’s translation of a particular mnemonic intertext, Je me souviens by the French writer Georges Perec. In the last part, the chapter addresses aspects of the memoirs’ interlingual translations, reception, and transcultural circulation.
