This article approaches the concepts of trauma and testimony as elaborated by Sándor Ferenczi and associates them to Svetlana Aleksiévitch’s book about the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl. It aims to show the value of Ferenczi’s observations on collective trauma by highlighting three topics: relational dissymmetry, process of denial and wounded narcissism. Aleksiévitch’s book allowed us to understand in what ways the author’s role resembles the one described by Ferenczi.
Key words:
Ferenczi; testimonial literature; colective trauma; denial