The novel Livro de José Luís Peixoto: a post-memory narrative

Authors

  • Luísa Afonso Soares University of Lisbon

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/myn.9674

Abstract

The novel Livro (2010), says the author, “may be pointed out as the most autobiographical of my books. Paradoxically, it is the less autobiographical, since it tells a story that takes place in a time before I was born. In fact, Livro tells the story, that is not mine, but of my parents: the story of Portuguese migration to France in the 60s. Peixoto’s novel is in this way a work of postmemory (Hirsch 1997), mediated by familiar narratives, images and attitudes and cemented by affection. The imaginative reconstruction of the personal experience allows to inscribe the individual memory into cultural memory and its consequent dissemination. Lastly, the novel’s translation and reception in very different geographies and cultures suggest the universality of the migratory experience narrated in Livro and enables the sharing of memories beyond familiar, ethnic or national bonds. It emerges, in this way, the idea of a common experience, which paves the way to empathy and transcultural memory (Erll 2011, Crownshaw 2011).

This essay aims to analyze the contours of the migratory experience in its social and cultural contexts, integrating in this analysis the strategies that permitted to translate aesthetically the violent past in Livro. And since emotions are crucial to the construction and transmission of memory, those will be also considered.

Author Biography

Luísa Afonso Soares, University of Lisbon

Luísa Afonso Soares é Professora Associada na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. Concluiu o doutoramento em Literatura Alemã em 1998 na mesma Universidade, onde lecciona Literatura Alemã, Cinema Alemão, Estudos de Género e História das Ideias Contemporâneas. Integra o corpo docente do Programa Internacional de Doutoramento em Estudos Comparatistas, do Programa de Cultura e Comunicação (FLUL) e do Doutoramento Interuniversitário em Estudos de Género (UL/UNL). É membro integrado do Centro de Estudos Comparatistas, onde desenvolve investigação nas áreas de Estudos de Memória e Emoções, Estudos de Cinema e Estudos de Género.

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Published

2022-05-31

Issue

No. 3 (2022)

Section

Artikler

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