Abstract

The number of migrants and their often deadly circumstances worldwide, through the Darién Gap, a variety of borders, or across the Mediterranean sea is simply overwhelming. The reports involving children have been particularly harrowing. Isabel Allende in her novel El Viento Conoce Mi Nombre narrates the migration and life story of two children, survivors of terrible historical events. Citing Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s Petit Prince, she underscores what shall be at the heart of this presentation: “On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.’’ In order to have readers see with their hearts Allende uses a variety of literary approaches, generating a strong awareness, at an engaged level, of events, of human suffering, which might potentially bring about important responses and remedies. Camus, in his Réflexions Sur la Guillotine, has this extraordinary sentence: ” Quand l’imagination dort, les mots se vident de leur sens…” Seeing with one’s heart was part of a class experiment we shall discuss involving a photograph of Omran Dagneesh. The alchemy of Allende’s creation, how she transmutes fact into fiction with deeply moving results, are examined. While the historical aspects of the novel present us with cards, in the Realist tradition of the nineteenth Century, Allende’s fiction, as well as all great art, injects us also with a vaccine; we do not die, but we feel the pain of the disease.

Presenters

Alexander Rainof
Emeritus Associate Professor, Romance, German and Russian Languages and Literatures Department, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Cultural Studies

KEYWORDS

Migration, Imagination, Art, Allende, Impact

Digital Media

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