Strategie testuali, paratestuali e discorsive in Manuscrito cuervo di Max Aub

Abstract

Manuscrito cuervo is part of El laberinto mágico, the narrative cycle in which Max Aub returns his personal memory about the Spanish Civil War, the prison camps and exile. The tale is one of Aub’s apocryphal works. It is in fact a false manuscript written by a crow, who in Le Vernet internment camp studies the human species for the benefit of its own companions. As Aub did during his captivity, the crow notes what he observes and reports the facts in his own way. The result is an anthropological pseudo-reflection written by an unlikely chronicler, whose external point of view gives the real events – personally experienced by Aub, who is the true witness – the status of literary fiction. In this way, Aub speaks about his own experience but not from an autobiographical perspective, and transmits a personal memory that is both individual and collective.

Keywords

• max aub
• manuscrito cuervo
• laberinto mágico
• spanish republican exile
• concentrationary literature