French Literature Reviews - 2026

Verónica Estay Stange, La postmémoire à l'œuvre. Art et traumatisme politique à travers les générations
History, Politics and Society

Are collective traumas, experienced individually by victims, transmitted to their descendants? Do the children of torture survivors bear any traces of that torture? If so, what do they do with them? The term "postmemory", coined by Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University), describes this phenomenon. This book develops a general theory of postmemory by examining it in practice, and above all by exploring how it transforms into artistic creation.

The workings of postmemory within creative expression are the core focus of this book. Through the analysis of roughly a hundred literary works and artistic productions related to the dictatorships in South America (Argentina, Chile) and other geopolitical regions, the author outlines a model of postmemory within the field of contemporary aesthetics. This research is rooted in a lived reality: that of the daughter of survivors of the Chilean dictatorship and niece of a perpetrator of crimes against humanity.

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Verónica Estay Stange is an Associate Professor (HDR) at Université Paris Cité. Her research focuses in particular on the intersection of art and politics within the context of memory and postmemory regarding major collective traumas in South America (Chile, Argentina).

The concept of postmemory, initially developed by Marianne Hirsch, addresses how the descendants of survivors absorb the unlived experiences of collective violence. In this volume, Veronica Estay Stange investigates this intergenerational transmission by observing its translation into artistic practices. Drawing on a corpus of approximately one hundred works, the study connects the political histories of authoritarian regimes in Chile, Argentina, and other regions with contemporary aesthetics, exploring the distinct traces left by historical trauma on subsequent generations.

Grounded in the personal perspective of a descendant of Chilean dictatorship survivors, the research situates itself within broader inquiries into memory, trauma, and representation. Readers interested in the intersection of politics, aesthetics, and the arts of testimony may find this overview a useful introduction to current debates in the field.