Jorge Semprún and the Myth of Woman

Abstract

In Jorge Semprún’s writing, gender identity is a frequent and complex preoccupation, predicated as it is on maternal loss and a confrontation with his own alterity as a Spanish exile in France and as a Buchenwald deportee. In this chapter, I will analyze Semprún’s engagement with the question of gender identity in a variety of texts that span a 40-year period, namely Le grand voyage (1963); L’évanouissement (1967); La deuxième mort de Ramón Mercader (1969); L’algarabie (1981); La montagne blanche (1986), Adieu, vive clarté … (1998); and “Les sandales” (2002).