Il desiderio di potere e il potere del desiderio: la "catastrofe del colonialismo" in Wanting di Richard Flanagan

Wanting (2008), a moving novel by the Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan, is a stern and provocative condemnation of what the author defines as “the catastrophe of colonialism”. The antipodean imperial adventure has, on the one hand, permanently affected the aboriginal people destroying their civilization and culture, while, on the other hand, has influenced the process of identity construction of a country which is still struggling to free itself from the national legend and its founding myths. The article examines the innovative features of this ‘neo-Victorian’ text (an inadequate definition to represent its complexity and originality) which subverts the traditional genre of the historical novel in order to explore, through postmodern writing strategies, reworked to serve the writer’s postcolonial project, the “overlapping territories, intertwined histories” (Said 1993) generated by colonial expansion. Connecting stories which embrace the new and the old world, Flanagan questions the official version of the peaceful white settlement in Van Diemen’s Land and the myth of the “grand destinies and progressive hopes” of Victorian society, while reflecting on the power of words and on the responsibility of creative writing. Thanks to his delicate and participated work of rediscovery and rewriting of the past, which takes shape throughout the pages of the novel, Flanagan leads the reader towards a form of understanding and “empathic knowledge” (LaCapra 2014) aimed at urging the assumption of a shared responsibility.