Political Dimensions of Nostalgia in Picturebooks

In picturebooks, nostalgia is connected to displacement, and both are usually treated in an apolitical and ahistorical manner. In this paper, the political aspects of nostalgia are examined, drawing on a sample of picturebooks with a clear political orientation, such as those of the nostalgic sixth Caryatid, the column-woman that used to hold up the roof of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis. In picturebooks about the abducted sixth Caryatid who feels intense nostalgia, personification, first-person narration, focalisation on the displaced victim or her lamenting relatives, moving illustration and interpictorial references manage to create a highly emotional text that encourages readers to empathise with the nostalgic Caryatid. In addition, peritextual elements, such as appendices, provide information to adult (co)readers about the political issue, while epitextual activities actively involve young readers in supporting actions. It seems that, when nostalgia serves a political position, it aims both at engaging emotionally and informing young readers, while at the same time pursues mediated reading that enables adult (co)readers to “chaperone” the whole process.