Testimony and the Promotion of Social Justice: The Case of Juana Doña Cover Image

La promoción de justicia social a través de un testimonio: el caso de Juana Doña
Testimony and the Promotion of Social Justice: The Case of Juana Doña

Author(s): Ana Belén Álvarez
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Studies of Literature, Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, Sociology, Military history, Recent History (1900 till today), Other Language Literature, Philosophy of Law, Family and social welfare, Economic development, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Fascism, Nazism and WW II
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: testimony; Spanish Civil War; social promotion; social justice; perpetrators

Summary/Abstract: Juana Doña describes her book Desde la noche y la niebla as a novel-testimony, but not an autobiographical one. This story about her life as a militant in the communist ranks, the Spanish Civil War, and her imprisonment mark the narrative evolution that transgresses any taboo imposed by Francisco Franco’s censorship. Doña relies on her memory and her present self-awareness to remember and decide, respectively, which events are related, and which are silenced; how actions are reaffirmed, and which information is omitted; and how the narrative pronoun changes according to her own life or the collective struggle. The book functions as an individual catharsis, both for the author and the readers. I propose to analyze the writing process of this book as a promotion of justice weapon, following Kimberly Nance’s theory about the ethical decisions made by the author of the testimony and inferring a new role for the reader as a timeless agent in social struggle.

  • Issue Year: 1/2023
  • Issue No: 23
  • Page Range: 1-10
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Spanish
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