Survivor Guilt and Post-Memory in Beatriz Rivas’s Novel Jamás, nadie

Abstract

This article analyzes how survivor’s guilt and the construction of postmemory (Sarlo) are manifested in the novel Jamás, nadie by Beatriz Rivas. Through the character of She Yan, who witnesses the massacre of Chinese people in Torreón during the Mexican Revolution, and his daughter Mía, who decades later reconstructs her family’s history, the effects of trauma (LaCapra) on personal, transgenerational, and identity memory are examined. The analysis is framed around themes of ethnic violence (Sinophobia) and migration narratives in contemporary Mexican literature. The novel is presented as a fictional space where historical silences are confronted and the need to process the past from the descendants’ perspective is foregrounded.