- The researcher from the Free University of Berlin participated in the 2024 cycle of keynote lectures of the “Carlos Fuentes” Chair of the Universidad Veracruzana
- He stated that the flight of the Jewish population from Nazism plays an important role in Latin American texts.
Susanne Klengel, academic at the Free University of Berlin
Extract: The expert spoke about the works Skin change by Carlos Fuentes and You will die far away by Emilio Pacheco
09/13/2024, Xalapa, Ver.- “The Holocaust and its consequences are a theme of universal dimension, and the flight of the Jewish population from Nazism plays an important role in Latin American texts,” said Susanne Klengel, from the Free University of Berlin, while participating virtually in the 2024 master lecture series of the “Carlos Fuentes” Chair of the Universidad Veracruzana (UV).
The speaker was introduced by Mario de Jesús Oliva Suárez, head of the General Directorate of International Relations (DGRI), who highlighted the opportunity to learn from Susanne Klengel, because, he said, she represents a source of knowledge that will enrich the understanding of the writer Carlos Fuentes.
When giving the lecture “Difficult pasts, rereadings in challenging times: Reflections on Skin change by Carlos Fuentes and You will die far away In her book “The Jewish Genocide of Emilio Pacheco,” Susanne Klengel explained that the Jewish genocide perpetrated by Nazism from the beginning found a place in literature with autobiographical texts as the main example.
Mario Oliva highlighted the researcher’s career
In the post-war period, the world was more concerned with reconstruction and the Cold War, and Latin America with its own development, but this did not prevent non-Jewish writers in the region from addressing the Holocaust in unusual works.
The expert mentioned that Skin change by Carlos Fuentes is a difficult and hermetic novel with cosmopolitan characters, whose reception was limited at the beginning.
This book, which narrates a car trip from Mexico City to Veracruz, links the Mexican imagination with Western culture, and criticizes social patterns by mixing the mythical with reality.
The conference was attended by authorities and researchers from the University
For its part, in You will die far away José Emilio Pacheco talks about several historical events, such as the war of the Roman Empire against the Jews, the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as the Nazi extermination camps.
Susanne Klengel said that both works are unusual, as in them their authors reflect on the crime against humanity of the Holocaust in an early period – 1967 – when international research into the genocide of the Jewish people was just beginning.
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