The historical novel as a metaphor: La amante del ghetto (2013) by Pedro Ángel Palou

Abstract

The historical case of the Holocaust functions, in the novel La amante del ghetto (2013) by Pedro Ángel Palou (1966, Mexico), as a metaphor for genocide of all times. In the center of Palou’s historical novel stands a particular, and paradigmatic, historical case of genocide, as a metaphor for contemporary genocides and conflicts such as Guerrero, Darfur or Syria. What answer can humanity give to these atrocities? The novel approaches this universal question through the particular and concrete story of Zofia, one of the Jewish Avengers who targeted Nazi war criminals in post-war Paris (1947) seeking revenge for the Holocaust. By telling the concrete details of her experience—the executions that she carries out, her silence on the sexual abuse in the camps and ghettos, and the way in which Christian Dior’s new aesthetics reactivate her individual empowerment capacity—the novel reflects metaphorically on three elements that are crucial in the healing of societies after genocide: justice, memory and art.