Lost Past and Rescued Traumas: Migration and Temporality in Rafael Chirbes´s En la orilla
2024 (English)In: Temporalities and Subjectivities in Migration Literature in Europe / [ed] Jopi Nyman; Johan Schimanski and Carmen Zamorano Llena, Lanham, Maryland, USA: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The aim of this chapter is to analyze the connection between the past and the present, as well as between trauma and crisis, in the representation of migrants in the novel On the Edge by Rafael Chirbes.To analyze migration and temporality in this novel, I focus on three key notions: narration, trauma, and loss. I examine how the narrative structures related to Liliana and Ahmed both give them a voice and deprive them of it, thus recreating, at a narratological level, the structures of subalternity and hegemony that also operate on a broader, global scale within the novel. Regarding trauma, I explore the relevance of Spain’s past traumas, specifically the Spanish Civil War, in understanding the representation of migration in the novel. On the other hand, loss—an omnipresent theme in crisis narratives—is analyzed in connection with temporality and migration, as I compare loss from the perspective of the disinherited (Valdivia, 2016)—those who had and lost—and the uninherited—those who never had. Drawing on the notions of loss (linked to the past) and "sense of potentiality" (Urban, 2013) (linked to the future), this chapter explores how trauma resurfaces in times of crisis and how it serves as a key to the representation of migration in On the Edge.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Lanham, Maryland, USA: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.
Keywords [en]
Trauma, Migration, Literature, Chirbes, Loss, Precarity
Keywords [es]
Trauma, Migración, Literatura, Chirbes, Pérdida, Precariedad
National Category
General Literature Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-50080Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105021562393ISBN: 978-1-66694-502-7 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-50080DiVA, id: diva2:1932405
2025-01-292025-01-292025-12-12Bibliographically approved