Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Zürich, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-239).

Jorge Semprún’s work is the fruit of an incarceration in the concentration camp of Buchenwald as a resistance fighter and his expulsion from the Partido Comunista Español in 1964. Due to these biographical circumstances, many critical literary studies to date limit the discussion of his works to the autobiographical and the realm of Holocaust studies. Together with the texts that do not fit adequately into this categories, his self-identification as a Spanish exile has up to now been neglected. The present thesis aims to provide a more global view of his oeuvre by extending the literary analyses to texts that have deserved little critical attention. In order to achieve this, it investigates the role played by memory and self-representation in a variety of works by Semprún. Aspects connected to memory such as exile and nostalgia, the Holocaust, the interplay between memory and writing, politics and collective memory, postmemory and identity are examined by means of a detailed analysis of the selected works and are discussed thematically. Differences in genre are discarded for the discussion and interconnections between the various narratives are highlighted. With the help of memory and trauma theories, we come to the conclusion that memory is the overarching principle of Semprún’s writing and that he invests it with an aesthetic and ethical value which is interpreted as the justification for his devotion to writing.

Tomás Segovia and Angelina Muñiz Huberman belong to a group of writers known as «Hispanomexicanos». Most approaches to this generation have been towards the role that exile plays in their early work, paying almost no attention to its role after that initial stage. These approaches have been limited to the first years of their work, in the belief that those writers subsequently moved on to deal with issues which are different from those in which their experience of exile is clearly the central topic. However, through an analysis of the poetry of Muñiz and Segovia, this thesis aims to show that exile continues to play a central role beyond that first stage. It argues that their exile is transformed into a series of symbols that come to constitute a shared style and, more importantly, it proposes that their experience of exile is transformed into a feeling of existential displacement which impels a search for meaning and belonging to the world. Consequently, the conclusion presented in this thesis is that exile plays a central role in their poetry, in the sense that it expresses the ways in which these two writers search and transmit meaning and attempt to feel part of the world. Ultimately, this thesis aims to set an example of approach which could be productively taken to study the work of other writers from this generation.

Univ., Diss.--Bamberg, 2002.

Silenced for almost half a century, testimonies of those who lost the Spanish Civil War are now surfacing and being published. The origin of this dissertation was the chance discovery that Martín Herrera de Mendoza, a Spanish Civil War exile living in the United States, was truly a Catalonian anarchist named Antonio Vidal Arabí. This double identity was a cover for the political activist dedicated to the fight for change in the anarchist workers’ union CNT (National Confederation of Workers) and the FAI (Federation of Iberian Anarchists). He founded the FAI chapter in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and planned a failed assassination attempt on General Franco’s life in an effort to avoid the military takeover in 1936. This dissertation is the reconstruction of Antonio Vidal Arabí’s life narrative. It is based on the texts written during his seventeen-month stay as a refugee in Great Britain. Copies of his writings were left in a suitcase with a fellow anarchist who he instructed to have sent to his family upon his death. In 1989, “The English Suitcase” was delivered to his children in Barcelona. Based on his own account, this study follows his service as an intelligence agent for the Spanish Republic during the War. When it was over, he attempted to evacuate his family from France, to save them from the threat of the Nazi invasion and reunite with them in England or America. The analysis of the letters he wrote to his wife and children in France documents how he hid from Franco’s spies using his dual identity. In his letters, always signed as Martín Herrera de Mendoza, he invents a persona in order to help his family. The present study narrates his transformation into the persona he created and the events that brought about his translation into his “other.” Antonio Vidal Arabí’s bilinguism and biculturality is underlined as the main factors in his change into Martín Herrera de Mendoza. His was a voyage into exile documented by his own words; a story of survival and reinvention. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 2006). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-204).

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, 2006). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-204).