The representation of Spanish Republicans in the graphic narrative Esperaré siempre tu regreso (2016) by Jordi Peidro

This talk will focus on the representation of Spanish republicans in the Mauthausen concentration camp in the historical graphic narrative, Esperaré siempre tu regreso (2016) by Jordi Peidro. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of ‘affiliative postmemory’ and Sebastiaan Faber’s notion of the ‘affiliative act’, the analysis will discuss how the author-illustrator navigates ethical and aesthetic issues when representing omething as inconceivable as the Holocaust. Peidro's text adds to the burgeoning genre of historical graphic narrative in Spain, which seeks to ‘recover and visualize forgotten or untold stories from the Spanish Civil War from a leftist perspective’ (Amago and Marr
2019). It also expands the growing corpus of contemporary graphic narratives that represent, acknowledge and pay homage to the Spanish Republican deportees or ‘unacknowledged ghosts’ (Sara J. Brenneis 2019) who were left to their fate in Nazi concentration camps.