The name 9.11, “the telegram of [a] metonymy” (Derrida) to refer to the event that took place, points to the incomprehension brought about by terror, and signals our being beyond our capacity to connect and make sense (Nancy). This article aims at showing how Art Spiegelman (In the Shadow of No Towers) and Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) build on a multimodal narration to own the traumatic experience and (re)establish sense-shaping structures. 9.11 changed the very nature of testimony: the narrative does not come to fill a silence that preceded it, but needs to undo the “screen testimony” written by the media. This article shows that In the Shadow of No Towers and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close are counter-narrative that both capture the traumatic blaze and set meaning-making in motion.
