War Diaries: Representation, Narration and Mediation

Abstract

Following on from the wide circulation of Anne Frank’s famous war diary, numerous war diaries, penned by young writers, have been unearthed and published: whether in their entirety or anthologised (or both). We argue that these texts make an important contribution to understanding and historicising both young people’s life writing and life writing of trauma. We consider what happens to these narratives as they travel through their various mediations: from embodied, first-person narratives by adolescent witnesses, to the original material diary, to discovery (preservation and archival), through to translation, publication and often to anthology. What mandates are given (from the outside, and after the fact—by editors, anthologisers and reviewers) to youth life writers documenting war?