L’histoire d’une mémoire décalée. Grandes Vacances en Angleterre d’Évelyne Pollet

Abstract

Today’s studies on memory encourage multidirectional memory, which assumes the transdisciplinary perspective and permits new understanding of texts which address traumatic events of the previous century. This is so in the case of Evelyne Pollet (1905-2005). Her largely autobiographical novel Grandes vacances en Angleterre (1945) is a record of a Belgian refugee family’s stay in Great Britain during World War One. This would not be particularly interesting if it had not been for the fact that the author does it near the end of the second global conflict. Her return to the events of 1914 1918 is not coincidental. Pollet purposefully turns the reader’s attention away from the inglorious chapters of her biography, her close ties with the collaborators’ literary milieu, and her intensive editorial work during the occupation. Grandes vacances en Angleterre is an example of instrumental approach to the type of memory referred to ‘displaced memory’.