Flight and exile marked the 20th century and remain two of the fundamental experiences of our time. Millions of human beings are forced to leave the country they were born in to seek a new life elsewhere.
But this experience, painful and traumatic in many cases, can also generate the space for rebirth. Marta Marín-Dòmine, based on the figure of her father, a child-soldier in the last months of the Spanish Civil War, and his exile forced by defeat, reflects on uprootedness and not being from anywhere; on how violent pasts shape us, not only those who live through them but also those who inherit them; and to what extent family and collective memory shapes us.
This is a wise and moving book. A tribute to the father and to so many nomadic lives that the author follows as well as her own until she reaches a disconcerting truth: that it is in the memories of others – in what we call memory – that we truly reside.
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