![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Struggle against oblivion may be the common denominator linking the Sephardic culture, as Prof. Jacobo Sefami rightly observes. Involved in this struggle in the literary field are the Mexican author Myriam Moscona, and the Chilean author, Hernán Rodríguez Fisse. Many of their pages offer texts in Ladino, one of the former links in the Sephardic world that is now making a resurrection in Latin America, through their writings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For our work, the term “Ladino” will be used for both spoken and written languages as practiced by Sephardic Jews of Iberian origin. All translations from Spanish and Ladino to English are mine (R.I.).
2 Sefami, “Myriam Moscona”.
3 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 79. (In the original: “Una tormenta hormonal vivida a cada siete años?”)
4 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 21 (In the original: “La señorita que lo cuida es angelical, toda vestida de blanco como um vaso de leche.”)
5 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 14 (In the original: “Mi abuela Victoria, la mujer siniestra de mi infancia” …)
6 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 23 (In the original Ladino: “No. Para una preta criatura komo sos, no ai pedron.”)
7 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 24 (In the original: “Mi abuela muere muy avanzado el siglo XX, sin dejar nunca el XIX.”)
8 Harris, Death of a Language, 241.
9 Kahn, “Jewish Ancestral Languages and Communicating the Sephardic Experience”. In: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yurj/vol1/iss1/7. Consulted: January 2022.
10 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 39. (English version: My dear: Being over fifty, I find myself where I must be. With God the Lord of the world! I didn't know that with [their] eyes closed, the dead speak to you in an ancient language, from ancient times, like this bird that fully expands itself in order to fly, but it flies backwards, because it doesn't matter where it goes. All that matters to it is where it comes from).
11 Moscona, Tela de sevoya, 58. (English version: This is the language of our reminiscences. … I have the pleasure of speaking djudezmo because I am tied to these memories. The young don’t. [The young] don`t have curiosity for this language).
12 Sefardíes en el exilio.
13 Rodríguez, Sefardíes en el exilio, 128
14 Rodríguez, París, Amor y Dolor, 35. (English version: After the day of work, Leon and Roberto took the opportunity to walk through the neighbourhoods of Vendôme Square, when they realized that the salon was surrounded by elegant jewelry and women's clothing stores. Returning to the boarding house, they were greeted by the luggage boy who had helped them with their bags the day before, and while he was giving them the room key, he repeated the suggestion to visit the brothel that was on the other side of the street).
15 Rodriguez, in El Amaneser (August 11, 2021).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Regina Igel
Professor Igel earned a B.A. in Romance Languages at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where she was born and raised. In the United States, Prof. Igel earned a M.A. in Portuguese and Spanish-American Literatures, and a Ph.D. degree in Luso-Brazilian Literatures. Among her publications, two books have many of their passages quoted by scholars: Osman Lins, uma biografia literária (1988), Imigrantes judeus, escritores brasileiros (O componente judaico na literatura brasileira, 1997).
Prof. Igel’s publications (articles, essays, chapters in books, dictionaries entries) have appeared in prestigious journals and literary supplements such as Caravelle, Revista Iberoamericana, Noah, O Estado de S.Paulo, Cadernos de Língua e Literatura Hebraica, Dictionary of Literary Biography, World Literature Today, Luso-Brazilian Review, Revista Interamericana de Bibliografía/Inter-American Review of Bibliography, among others. For more than 30 years, Prof. Igel oversaw the section “Brazilian Novels”, in Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) a bi-annual publication by the Library of Congress and the University of Texas.