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Marina Warner’s Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir (2021) is her second work belonging to the genre of life writing, more particularly the memoir. She had already written a biography, The Dragon Empress: The Life and Times of Tz’u-Hsi, Empress Dowager of China, 1835-1980, about a Chinese empress in 1972, but her memoir is more personal, rather focused on her parents’ marriage, life itineraries and travels through Italy, England and Egypt during and after WWII. Interestingly, many characteristics of her memoir fit with another life writing genre, identified by the French theorist Dominique Viart in the eighties as the ‘filiation narrative,’ initially in reference to French fiction of the same period. The filiation narrative focuses on a self-reflexive search for parental images, reconstructing the mother’s or father’s life through the excavation of documentation and archives, as well as speculation. This article will attempt to show how such thematic and structural features of the filiation narrative as ‘archeological’ narration, the use of archival documents and objects to restore a parent’s ‘lost’ life and, most importantly, the metabiographical aspect of the ‘enterprise’ are reflected, in various degrees, in Warner’s memoir, making it waver between fiction and non-fiction. These same features may thus pave the way for the English counterpart of the French ‘récit de filiation’ and build a pertinent generic continuity between both memoir and filiation narrative.

This article reads Dalila Kerchouche’s Mon père, ce harki (My Father, this Harki) as a postcolonial filiation narrative, which blends memoir and biography, the personal and collective, the past and present. Lack of knowledge and a desire to see for herself the camps her parents and older siblings experienced prompts Kerchouche to adopt an investigative posture characterized by in situ exploration in conjunction with interviews and the consultation of archives. This allows the author to achieve a polyphonic account of the past. At the same time, her family serves as the prism through which she confronts the stigma attached to Harkis (Algerian soldiers hired by the French Army) and examines their unjust treatment in France.

In this article I will explore Dominique Viart’s concept of filiation narrative to analyze how Julián Fuks constructs his relationship with his parents and siblings, and how the migrations of his ancestors forged the family that ended up in São Paulo during Argentina’s most recent military dictatorship. This novel of the post-fiction era seems to pay witness to our times, a witness to the horrors experienced by so many human beings who lost their lives in the dungeons of the torture centers or the extermination camps during the Second World. This literature of resistance is characterized by a lack of linearity, by the tension between the real and the fictional, by investigation, by the resort to hypotheses, whether plausible or implausible, and a concern with social issues. This “writing of restitution,” to use Viart’s words, casts doubt on its own investigations and is wary of discourses and concepts, rejects ready-made ideas and well-established truths. The enunciative posture is made explicit and the reader knows who is speaking and where the narrator is speaking from., Neste artigo explorarei o conceito de “narrativa de filiação”, de Dominique Viart, para analisar como Julián Fuks constrói sua relação com seus pais e irmãos e como as migrações dos ancestrais forjaram a família que veio parar em São Paulo durante a última ditadura militar na Argentina. Esse romance da era da pós-ficção aparece como testemunha do nosso tempo, testemunha dos horrores vivenciados por tantos humanos que perderam sua humanidade nos porões dos centros de tortura ou nos campos de extermínio durante a Segunda Guerra. Essa literatura de resistência se caracteriza pela ausência de linearidade, pela tensão entre o real e o ficcional, pela investigação, pelo recurso a hipóteses, plausíveis ou implausíveis, e pela preocupação com a questão social. Essa “escrita da restituição”, nas palavras de Viart, coloca em dúvida suas próprias investigações e desconfia de discursos e conceitos, recusa as ideias prontas e as verdades bem estabelecidas. A postura enunciativa é explicitada e o leitor sabe quem fala e de que lugar fala o narrador., En el presente artículo exploraré el concepto de narrativa de filiación de Dominique Viart para analizar cómo Julián Fuks construye la relación con sus padres y hermanos y de qué modo las migraciones de los antepasados forjaron la familia que llegó a San Pablo durante la última dictadura militar en Argentina. Esta novela de la era de la post-ficción aparece como testigo de nuestro tiempo, testigo de los horrores experimentados por tantos humanos que han perdido su humanidad en los sótanos de los centros de tortura o en los campos de exterminio durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Dicha literatura de resistencia se caracteriza por la ausencia de linealidad, la tensión entre lo real y lo ficticio, la investigación, el uso de hipótesis, plausibles o inverosímiles, y la preocupación por el tema social. Esta "escritura de la restitución", según las palabras de Viart, pone en duda sus propias investigaciones y sospecha de discursos y conceptos, rechaza ideas listas y verdades ya establecidas. La postura enunciativa queda explícita y el lector sabe quién habla y cuál es el lugar desde donde habla el narrador.

The well-known Peruvian journalist Renato Cisneros is the son of the Peruvian Military Luis Federico “El Gaucho” Cisneros; the latter one was Minister of Internal Affairs during the dictatorship of Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975–1980), and Minister of War during the second presidential term of Belaúnde (1980–1985), in one of the toughest times of the conflict of the Peruvian government with Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru; the poet José Carlos Agüero, on the other hand, is a human rights activist and the son of “Senderistas” who were trialed in an extrajudicial instance: in 1986 his father, José Manuel Agüero, and in 1992 his mother, Silvia Solórzano. Both Cisneros and Agüero have recently published texts in which they give account of the violence experienced in Perú during that time, from a very personal perspective. Again, both of them draw questions about the political activity of their parents and the legacy, the guilt and responsibilities inherited by them as their offspring. But while Renato Cisneros makes of his book, La distancia que nos separa (2016), an “autofiction novel”, José Carlos Agüero presents his text, Los rendidos. Sobre el don de perdonar (2015), like a group of “short accounts, half in between thoughts and biographical notes of a time of violence”. The difference in their emphasis is not only linked with politics and their thoughts on human rights, but is also revealed in the ways in which writing shapes their accounts, and in them, shapes their respective parents. In this article, I will analyze both narratives from the concept of “filiation narratives”, as proposed by Dominique Viart (2009) for the narratives of offspring in European, post -Holocaust literature. We will see how this type of account operates in them, drifting from the autobiographical and the fictional (Roos, 2013); how each of them resolves the problem of political inheritance and memory; and how they both create a text about recent memory and, at the same time, a particul, El conocido periodista peruano Renato Cisneros es hijo del militar peruano Luis Federico “El Gaucho” Cisneros; éste fue ministro del Interior bajo la dictadura de Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975 – 1980) y ministro de Guerra durante el segundo gobierno de Belaúnde (1980 – 1985), en uno de los períodos más difíciles de la guerra de Sendero Luminoso y Tupac Amaru; el poeta José Carlos Agüero, por su parte, es activista de derechos humanos e hijo de senderistas ajusticiados extrajudicialmente: en 1986 José Manuel Agüero, su padre, y en 1992, Silvia Solórzano, su madre. Tanto Cisneros como Agüero han publicado recientemente textos en que dan cuenta de la violencia vivida por el Perú en aquellos años, desde una perspectiva muy personal. En ambos escuece la interrogación sobre la actividad política de los padres, y la interrogación sobre la herencia, las culpas y las responsabilidades está implícita o explícitamente plasmada en sus relatos. Pero en tanto Renato Cisneros hace de su libro, La distancia que nos separa (2016), una “novela de autoficción”, José Carlos Agüero presenta el suyo, Los rendidos. Sobre el don de perdonar (2015), como un conjunto de “relatos cortos, a media carrera entre reflexiones y apuntes biográficos de una época de violencia”. La diferencia de sus diferentes enfoques no solo dice relación con la política y la reflexión sobre los derechos humanos, sino que también se revela en las formas escriturales con que configuran sus relatos y en ellos, a sus respectivos progenitores. A continuación, analizaré ambas narrativas a partir del concepto de “relato de filiación”, propuesto por Dominique Viart (2009) para la narrativa de los hijos en la literatura europea postholocausto. Se verá cómo opera en ellos este tipo de relato entre lo autobiográfico y lo ficcional (Roos, 2013), cómo cada uno resuelve el problema de la herencia política y la memoria, y cómo ambos crean, al mismo tiempo que un texto sobre la memoria reciente, su propia fisonomía como autores