Image-word: the iconicity of writing in Milton Hatoum’s "Relato de um certo oriente"

Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate that Milton Hatoum’s novel Relato de um Certo Oriente (1989) explains the affinity between the acts of reading and seeing, such affinity dates back to the iconic origins of writing. Despite not presenting any material image in yours pages or exploiting the graphic dimension of letters in which is composed, the work in question reestablishes the links between the verbal and the visual by reference to arabic alphabet, coffee grounds reading, Soraya Ângela’s expressive forms and comet written/drawn by Dorner. Thus, Hatoum’s novel, when addressing the writing iconicity, not only suggests the similarity between the gesture of writers and visual artists but also confirms the critique of “alphabet-centrism”, which, selon Roland Barthes (2004), neglects the cryptographic, ritualistic and symbolic aspect that characterizes the writing practice.