| This work is a comparative study which explores the topics of memory and identity in the contemporary Jewish Latin American novel, with emphasis on Argentine literature. The first chapter introduces current discussion on the idea of Latin American Jewish writing, making reference to scholars such as Marjorie Agosin, Leonardo Senkman, and Saul Sosnowski, among others. A historical perspective of this literature is also presented, from the beginning of the 20th century until today. The second chapter examines the concept of collective memory, introduced by Maurice Halbwachs, as well as further studies by Pierre Nora and Hayim Y. Yerushalmi on the distinction between memory and history. One of the narrative sub-genres in which memory is explored by Jewish Latin American writers is the autobiographical novel. Sylvia Molloy's research on this topic as well as other debates on this sub-genre in the Latin American context are considered. In the third chapter, four autobiographical novels---by Alice Steimberg, Ana Maria Shua, Sabina Berman and Teresa Porzecanski---are analyzed. These writers tend to explore identity through recollection and reconstruction of their diasporic family stories. The new historical novel is the second sub-genre where Jewish Latin American authors engage their quest in search for identity. Chapter four focuses on this sub-genre in the Latin American context, in particular, on Seymour Menton's work on this subject. Furthermore, the distinctions between history and fiction by critics as Nora and Linda Hutcheon are discussed. The historical novels selected for this research deal with the same episode: the Jewish white slave trade that took place in Argentina and Brazil between 1880 and 1930. The last chapter provides a review of the fictionalization of this historical event throughout the 20th century, based on Nora Glickman's research on the subject. In addition, four novels on the Jewish white slave trade---by Moacyr Scliar, Myrtha Schalom, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Elsa Drucaroff---are analyzed. The novels of both narrative sub-genres studied in this research question the idea of nation, and reformulate official history, as they inscribe in it diverse narratives of minorities. |
