The drowned and the saved: Alves Redol’s approximations to the Holocaust
Abstract
Picking up on Primo Levi’s famous formulation on The Drowned and the Saved (1987), this paper shows two examples of fictional works by Redol, in which his usual political views are conveyed through connections to the Holocaust: A Barca dos Sete Lemes [The Man with Seven Names] (1958) and O Cavalo Espantado (1960). The first work displays the journey of a young man born on the banks of the Tagus, who then fought in the Marocco War and ended up in a Nazi-ruled prison in France during the Second World War, his African experience in the war being seen as potentially useful for a concentration camp guard; the second novel narrates the story of a rich Austrian Jewish couple in Lisbon, who fled a regime with which they had collaborated that now was sending people like them to work and die at the Mauthausen quarry.
While the hero of the former escapes from a miserable Portugal but drowns close to the drama of the Holocaust, the couple of the latter is saved from that drama via Lisbon. Two different directions during the catastrophe, one common figure in the novel: Alves Redol as a literary alter ego in contact with these characters, witnessing how one drowns or is chosen for salvation in apocalyptic times.
References
Alexander, J. (2004). On the social construction of moral universals: The Holocaust from war crime to trauma drama. In A. C. Jeffrey, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N. J. Smelser, P. Sztompka (Eds.), Cultural trauma and collective identity (pp. 196-263). Berkeley: California University Press.
Alves Redol e a crítica. (1958). Vértice, 30, 322-323, 983-1022.
Assmann, A. (2010). The Holocaust – a global memory? Extensions and limits of a new memory community. In A. Assmann & S. Conrad (Eds.), Memory in a global age. Discourses, practices and trajectories (pp. 97-117). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Azevedo, C. (1997). Mutiladas e Proibidas. Para uma história da censura literária em Portugal nos tempos do Estado Novo. Lisboa: Caminho.
Bauman, Z. (2003). The uniqueness and normality of the Holocaust. In N. Levi & M. Rothberg (Eds.), The Holocaust. Theoretical readings (pp. 82-88). New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Bezerra, A. C. (2012). Concepções de Alves Redol sobre a ficção e a narrativa: prefácios a Avieiros e Fanga. Nova Síntese, 7, 175-192.
Buescu, H. C. (1998). Em busca do autor perdido. Histórias, concepções, teorias. Lisboa: Cosmos.
Carvalho, P. (2015). Portugueses nos campos de concentração nazis: As histórias dos Portugueses deportados para os campos da morte de Adolf Hitler. Amadora: Vogais.
Ferreira, A. P. (2012). Para a história do neo-realismo: O Cavalo Espantado, testemunho épico-poético. Nova Síntese, 7, 61-70.
Ferreira, A. P. (1992). Alves Redol e o neo-realismo português. Lisboa: Caminho.
Günter, M. (2002). Writing Ghosts: Von den (Un-)Möglichkeiten autobiographischen Erzählens nach dem Überleben. In M. Günter (Ed.), überleben schreiben – zur Autobiographik der Shoah (pp. 21-50). Würzburg: Königshausen&Neumann.
Hilberg, R. (1992). Perpetrators, victims, bystanders. The Jewish catastrophe 1933-1945. New York: Harper Collins.
Hirsch, M. (2012). The generation of post-memory. Writing and visual culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kansteiner, W. & Presner, T. (2016). The field of Holocaust studies and the emergence of global Holocaust culture. In C. Fogu, W. Kansteiner & T. Presner (Eds.), Probing the ethics of Holocaust culture (pp. 1-42). Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Kleinschmidt, E. (2002). Schreiben an Grenzen. Probleme der Autorschaft in Shoah-Autobiographik. In M. Günter (Ed.), Überleben schreiben – zur Autobiographik der Shoah (pp. 77-95). Würzburg: Königshausen&Neumann.
LaCapra, D. (2014). Writing history, writing trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Levi, N. & Rothberg, M. (Eds.). (2003). The Holocaust. Theoretical readings. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Levi, P. (2008). Os que sucumbem e os que se salvam. Lisboa: Teorema. Trad. port. de José Colaço Barreiros.
Levy, D., & Sznaider, N. (2006). The Holocaust and memory in the global age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lindemann, V. (2017). Rereading Alves Redol’s O Cavalo Espantado (1960): Literary negotiations of a refugee crisis and the remembrance of Jewish refugees in Lisbon. In E. Kovach, A. Nünning & I. Polland (Eds.), Literature and crises. Conceptual explorations and literary negotiations (pp. 105-116). Trier: WVT.
Lopes, L. P. (2017). Denunciar o horror: o caso de Bernardo Santareno. In D. Tavares, D. Oliveira, L. P. Lopes, O. Grossegesse, C. Flores, M. Ramón (Eds.), Outros lugares. Utopias, distopias, heterotopias (pp. 155-174). V. N. Famalicão: Húmus.
Madeira, J. (2012). Alves Redol nos ‘anos de chumbo’ do neo-realismo. Nova Síntese, 7, 199-209.
Pereira, G. M. (Org.). 2013. Alves Redol e o Douro. Correspondência para Francisco Tavares Telles. Porto: Afrontamento.
Pimentel, I. F., & Ninhos, C. (2013). Salazar, Portugal e o Holocausto. Lisboa: Temas e Debates – Círculo de Leitores.
Pires, J. C. (1965). Uma incomodidade deliberada. Vértice, 258, 161-166.
Probst, L. (2003). Founding myths in Europe and the role of the Holocaust. New German Critique, 90, 45-58.
Redol, A. (2017). O cavalo espantado. Alfragide: Caminho.
Redol, A. (2011). A barca dos sete lemes. Alfragide: Caminho.
Redol, A. (1991). Nasci com passaporte de turista: E outros contos. Lisboa: Caminho. Org. J. M. Mendes.
Redol, A. (1965). Alinhavos para uma autobiografia. Vértice, 258, 175-178.
Redol. A. (1964). A barca dos sete lemes. Lisboa: Europa-América.
Redol, A. (s.d.). A França – Da resistência à renascença. Lisboa: Editorial Inquérito.
Reis, C. (2012). Alves Redol e a poética do romance: encruzilhadas e derivas ideológicas. Nova Síntese, 7, 15-30.
Reis, C. (2005). A construção da memória: história literária como dualidade e conflito. In M. da P. C. Fernandes (Coord.), História(s) da Literatura: Actas do 1º Congresso Internacional de Teoria da Literatura e Literaturas Lusófonas (pp. 169-182). Coimbra: Almedina.
Rothberg, M. (2009). Multidirectional memory – Remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University press.
Santos, L. D. (2012). Pensamento e acção de Alves Redol no neo-realismo visual: a estética, a arte e as artes visuo-plásticas. Nova Síntese, 7, 243-252.
Simões, J. G. (2001). Crítica III. Romancista contemporâneos (1942-1961). Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda.
Torres, A. P. (1979). Os romances de Alves Redol. Moraes Editores.
Viçoso, V. P. (2012). Alves Redol: do ‘etnografismo’ à construção de uma poética da narrativa neo-realista. Nova Síntese, 7, 121-143.
Young, J. E. (2000). At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in contemporary art and architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.