Trauma, Memory and Identity in Five Jewish Novels from the Southern Cone

The Jewish presence in Latin America is a recent chapter in Jewish history that has produced a remarkable body of literature that gives voice to the fascinating experience of Jews in Latin American lands. This book explores the complexity of Jewish identity in Latin America through the fictional Jewish characters of five novels written by Jewish authors from the Southern Cone: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. It examines how trauma and memory have profound effects on shaping the identity of these Jewish characters who have to forge a new identity as they begin to interact with the Latin American societies of their newly adopted homes. The first three novels present stories narrated by the first generation of immigrants who arrived in Latin American lands escaping pogroms in Russia, and the increasing persecution and anti-Semitism in Europe, in the decades prior to World War II. The fourth novel analyses the identity conflicts experienced by a second generation Latin American born Jew who questions his Jewish, questions of assimilation and integration in to his society. The last novel closes this study with the existential crisis experienced by a perfectly assimilated non-religious Jew, who enquires about his Jewishness and compares himself to other Jews around him.

Autorentext
Debora Cordeiro Rosa was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil and has been living in the United States since 1998. She got her Ph.D. in Latin American Literature at Florida State University in 2005 and is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Modern Languages at University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Inhalt
Introduction
Chapter1: History of Immigration to the Southern Cone Countries
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Paraguay
Uruguay
Chapter 2: Perfumes de Cartago by Teresa Porzecanski - Uruguay
Chapter 3: Para siempre en mi memoria by Sonia Guralnik - Chile
Chapter 4: Barrio Palestina by Susana Gertopan - Paraguay
Chapter 5: O Terceiro Testamento by Francisco Dzialovsky - Brazil
Chapter 6: No tan distinto by Marcelo Birmajer - Argentina
Conclusion