Max Aub y Jorge Semprún: el exilio europeo y la Europa del exilio puestos en escena

Leuzinger, Mirjam

Zusammenfassung

Despite belonging to different generations, Max Aub (1903-1972) and Jorge Semprún (1923-2011) share a literary extraterritoriality shaped by their experiences of exile and their survival in the horrors of European concentration camps. With the theoretical support of José María Naharro-Calderón, the present study focuses on two crucial examples that constitute a transgeneric corpus of texts from and about European exile: the plays El rapto de Europa o siempre se puede hacer algo (1945) and Gurs, una tragedia europea (2004). The European frame of reference encourages research on the contiguity of the era’s forced displacements, by focusing on the exile experiences of Jewish communities and of supporters of the Spanish Republic. This approach, thus, allows for the recovery of literary sources, as well as the mapping of literary spaces informed by transnational and trans-exilic perspectives. In addition, this inquiry fosters reflection on the fate of Europe which, in these plays by Aub and Semprún, finds itself at the symbolic crossroads of life and death. As a result, this study shed light on an ethics of resistance and the embodiment of a transcultural and polyglot Europe in two emblematic sites of European exile: Marseille and the Gurs Internment Camp.