DE REENCUENTROS Y EMOCIONES. LA BARCELONA DEL RETORNO EN EL FONDO FOTOGRÁFICO DEL ESCRITOR PERE CALDERS. 1962-1992

Based on the theoretic and methodological framework of emotional history, we offer an original contribution to the studies on the Spanish Republican exile in Mexico. We analyse a testimonial case of the Catalan diaspora that found asylum on Mexican soil during Franco’s regime, and focus on the longing for and manifestation of the return to Barcelona experienced by the author Pere Calders, in 1962. To do so, we focus on the photographs in his personal archive, held at the Biblioteca d’Humanitats of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (BH-UAB), enabling us to examine his exile experience – which has barely been considered by historical science – and, by examining the images, incorporate it into the historiography on contemporary population movements between Spain and America. We thus offer a visual approach to Calders’s life journey, delving into the emotions that marked the final stage of his exile: the reunion with his family environment and with the intellectual and professional scene in Barcelona during the last stage of Franco’s dictatorship and the Spanish Transition.