When birds come back: Nature in The Long Voyage and Literature or Life by Jorge Semprun

The works of author, scriptwriter and politician Jorge Semprun (1923-2011), most of which were written primarily in French, pertains to the highly political events and the dark side of 20th century, covering the span from Spanish Civil War to the aftermath of World War II. Semprun fled with his family to France after the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1937, joined the French Resistance during World War II, for which he was arrested in 1943 and sent to Buchenwald Nazi Concentration Camp. Besides conveying the author’s personal experience at the Camp, his novels The Long Voyage and Literature or Life -published in 1963 and in 1994, respectively- introduce an extensive analysis of man, life, death and violence. One of the most important qualities of the narratives is the description of nature which accompanies the events and the physiological and psychological changes that the author has experienced. While the seasons, climate, the sky, the woods, the rivers and the birds guide the author to interpret what he has gone through, they also evoke concepts such as eternity, grief, pain, happiness and freedom, depicting an experience between life and death along with hope and despair. Thus, this paper aims at examining the figurative language and nature descriptions in the line of reasoning of a traumatic experience in the novels The Long Voyage and Literature or Life