The Disappeared as a Transnational Figure or How to Deal with the Vain Yesterday

This article examines the figure of the desaparecido as a transnational symbol, focusing on the ‘success’ this figure has had in the contemporary debate about memory in Spain. Taken from the repressive context of the dictatorships of the 1970s in South America, the disappeared have travelled to the Spain of the twenty-first century, where they are progressively replacing the former ‘fusilados y paseados’ of the Franco Regime. After charting the ways in which the term has been used in the public debate, we analyse the figure of the disappeared in the novel, El vano ayer, by the Spanish writer Isaac Rosa.