L’identité hybride d’un exilé à l’exemple de L’oublié d’Élie Wiesel

The present article discusses a hybrid identity of two main characters from the novel The Forgotten by Élie Wiesel. Having left Europe, Elhanan Rosenbaum settles down in the United States. Even though he adapts to his new surroundings, he perceives himself chiefly as a Jew. When he begins to suffer from an incurable disease that causes him to lose his memory, he compels his son, who was brought up in the USA, to go to Romania. The main goal of this trip is to rescue the memory of the past from oblivion: memory as an indicator of Jewishness. Moreover, thanks to the expedition, Malkiel succeeds to strengthen his own Jewish identity.