Tracing ancestral trauma

Filiation and postmemory in The Bracelet of Fire by Beatrice Saias-Magrizou

Abstract

The article explores the Greek novel The Bracelet of Fire (To Vrahioli tis Fotias, 2009) by Beatrice Saias-Magrizou as an example of contemporary filiation narrative. Based on the author’s family history during the Holocaust, the novel reconstructs the experiences of a Jewish family from Thessaloniki and their deportation to the concentration camps. Once home to one of Europe’s largest Sephardic communities, Thessaloniki witnessed the near-total annihilation of its Jewish population. Although fictional, the novel is rooted in historical reality, tracing a lineage of trauma passed down through generations. We read the novel as a filiation narrative in the sense Viart describes: “the account of the other as a detour to reach oneself.” Narration serves as a means of self-definition, where identity is examined through the lens of inherited memory. Merging autofiction, testimony, and postmemory, the novel creates a space where personal and collective histories intersect (Viart, 2019, p. 27). Thus, narratives of filiation can serve as both individual and collective engagement with the past (Kenny, 1999, p. 420) by conveying traumatic memories through storytelling. The novel’s popularity in Greece, and its 2023 adaptation into a television series, indicate an increasing cultural willingness to confronting the silenced past.