Everything is Illuminated from the search for the family memory

Abstract

Considering the importance of the familiar and cultural memory’s preservation to the Jewish community, this paper intends to analyze the novel Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, from the search for family memory undertaken by the protagonist. The novel, which brings the authorial so as a character, reports Jonathan’s trip to Ukraine to rescue the history of his grandfather before he runs away to the US during World War II. Since the novel uses the biography and several discourses(reports) in its construction, the paper aims to deconstruct the binarism between fictional X nonfictional speeches. Besides, in view of these elements and the identity’s shifting borders that appear in the book, it is intended to analyze, through the concept of nomadism, the recovery of memory as one of the determining factors in the identity construction.