THE FICTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN W. G. SEBALD’S THE EMIGRANTS AND VARUJAN VOSGANIAN’S THE BOOK OF WHISPERS

Abstract

This article analyzes collective memory in the novels The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald and The Book of whispers by Varujan Vosganian, based on two categories: the figure of the narrator and the objects of memory, taking the theoretical notions of Paul Ricoeur's mnestic traces, Maurice Halbwachs' collective memory and Elizabeth Jelin's labors of memory. It is concluded that there is a fictional construction of the collective memory because these narrators intentionally expose how -unable to ac cess the totality of their memories or the memories of others- they must resort to the interpretation of the traces of the past (testimonies and objects of memory) in a process in which the imagination intervenes to fill the gaps found