Antichi futuri, mondi post-apocalittici e alchimie testuali nel graphic novel Rāmāyan 3392 a.d.

This article offers a preliminary discussion of Rāmāyan 3392 a.d, a recent graphic novel by Chopra and Kapur (2007), which is structured as an intersemiotic translation of ancient Indian epic, in which the poetic techniques of fantasy and science fiction are used to portray the battle between the human beings, led by Rama, and Ravan’s demons in a post-apocalyptic world. Benefitting from an interdisciplinary approach that draws on contemporary stylistics, the semiotics of comics, and postcolonial studies, the analysis will explore the linguistic and stylistic means of a complex project that reshapes elements of the ancient heritage of Hindu tradition into a futuristic apocalyptic imagery. The starting point of my investigation will be the emergence of Indian sci-fi against the backdrop of the cultural inheritance of time-honoured local epics and myths. Specifically, I will tease out the narrative creativity and cognitive processes of science fiction of my case study, bearing in mind the concept of pictorial and verbal complexity of graphic novels recently proposed by Hescher (2016).