Jorge Semprún's obsession with memory is fed by a triple experience of exile: emigration from Spain, imprisonment in Buchenwald and expulsion from the Communist Party. While the notion of exile can be found at the core of his writing, it constitutes a complex construction that changes over time. Through the examination of three very different texts this article traces the meanings that exile acquires in Semprún's writing. Portrayed in partly negative terms in Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez, as the Spanish Communist Party leadership is ignorant of the true political situation within Spain due to its being outside, in Adiós, luz de veranos, it comes to figure as an internalized virtue enabling the writer to pursue his vocation. In La escritura o la vida the focus on the concentration camp underlines the traumatic qualities of exile and the difficulty of creating a listener who can relate to the experience of extreme alienation. © 2011 Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA).

Spanish Civil War Exile memory Jorge semprún trauma

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