Los que regresany los que no: posmemoria y libros álbumsobre niñosevacuados = Those who come back and those who don’t : postmemory and picturebooks about evacuated children

Arizpe, E. (2024) Los que regresany los que no: posmemoria y libros álbumsobre niñosevacuados = Those who come back and those who don’t : postmemory and picturebooks about evacuated children. LIJ Ibero. Revista de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil Contemporánea, 17(9), pp. 36-53. (doi: 10.48102/lijibero.17.372)

Abstract

In the 1930s and 1940s, large evacuations of groups of children took place in several European countries to protect them from war. Picturebooks that narrate these historical events and experiences of evacuees are confronted with the challenge of filtering the traumatic details and mitigating their impact on readers. They therefore use a variety of literary and visual strategies to transfer historical memory. In this article, I argue that the concept of postmemory proposed by Hirsch (2012) and extended by other literary critics, helps to understand these strategies and how they are creatively articulated in the narrative with a view to the future. As an example, I examine three texts set in different geographical contexts: The Lion and the Unicorn by Shirley Hughes (1988); Tre in tutto (Three in tutto) written by Davide Cali and illustrated by Isabella Labate (2018) and Mexique, written by Maria José Ferrada and illustrated by Ana Penyas (2017). Using the key “emotional turning points” (Kuusisto-Arponen 2014) as a structure, I analyse the "postmemorial structures at the level of narrative" (Milevski and Wetenkamp 2022) that are sustained by historical markers and fragments of oral and written memory, and give rise to creative productions that, according to Hirsch, help to “re-embody and to re-individualise the more distant structures of cultural memory” (36). I conclude that the three books extend an invitation, at different emotive levels, to reflections that can foster an affiliation between generations, but also towards those who are currently in situations of forced displacement.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: child evacuees, picturebooks, postmemory, memory, trauma.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Arizpe, Professor Evelyn
• Authors: Arizpe, E.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Culture, Literacies, Inclusion & Pedagogy
• Research Group: Culture, Literacies, Inclusion and Pedagogy
• Journal Name: LIJ Ibero. Revista de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil Contemporánea
• Journal Abbr.: LIJ Ibero
• Publisher: Universidad Iberoamericana
• ISSN: 2448-7848
• ISSN (Online): 2448-7848