Women in Sabine Scholl's novel Transit Lissabon (2024)

Abstract

In the summer of 1940, a large wave of Jewish refugees arrived in Portugal, bringing new ideas that could have influenced the country’s path to freedom. The Estado Novo, however, curbed any change. The presence of these fugitives and their effects on Portuguese society have interested both History and Literature, particularly regarding the responses of the Portuguese to the liberal behaviour of the exiles, as well as the reactions of the refugees to the Portugal of the time. It is from this latter point of view that this study approaches Sabine Scholl’s novel Transit Lissabon. Focusing on the female characters, it intends to examine not only their literary configuration, but also their assessment of the Portuguese women and men they come across in this work of historiographic metafiction and meta-memory.