"The great night of Europe is shot through with long, sinister trains": Transnational memory and European identity in Antonio Muñoz Molina's Sepharad

TY - JOUR

T1 - "The great night of Europe is shot through with long, sinister trains"

T2 - Transnational memory and European identity in Antonio Muñoz Molina's Sepharad

AU - Paulsen, Lasse-Emil

PY - 2015/3/9

Y1 - 2015/3/9

N2 - Since 1975 Spain has been engaged in the recuperation of the memory of the Francoist past. For along time, under the headline “Spain is different”, the public debate has reflected a view of theSpanish experience as a particular event tied to the nation state. However, since the turn of themillennium such a notion is constantly being challenged by global and transnational influences thataffect and reshape the local memory discourse(s). The following article aims to show how the novelSepharad by the Spanish author Antonio Muñoz Molina could be read as a literary manifestation of a“multidirectional memory”, in which different memory scenarios in dialogue inscribe the memory ofthe Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship into a common European memory context. Inthis sense, the novel can be read as a paradigmatic example of a transnational memory discourse,which tries to transcend traditional Manichean divisions between “us” and ‘them”, instead focusingon the persecuted and oppressed and warning us of the presence of totalitarian and exclusionarylogics in our contemporary society.

AB - Since 1975 Spain has been engaged in the recuperation of the memory of the Francoist past. For along time, under the headline “Spain is different”, the public debate has reflected a view of theSpanish experience as a particular event tied to the nation state. However, since the turn of themillennium such a notion is constantly being challenged by global and transnational influences thataffect and reshape the local memory discourse(s). The following article aims to show how the novelSepharad by the Spanish author Antonio Muñoz Molina could be read as a literary manifestation of a“multidirectional memory”, in which different memory scenarios in dialogue inscribe the memory ofthe Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship into a common European memory context. Inthis sense, the novel can be read as a paradigmatic example of a transnational memory discourse,which tries to transcend traditional Manichean divisions between “us” and ‘them”, instead focusingon the persecuted and oppressed and warning us of the presence of totalitarian and exclusionarylogics in our contemporary society.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1749-9771

VL - Special Issue 2015

JO - Forum (Edinburgh)

JF - Forum (Edinburgh)

IS - 4

ER -