Latin American Literary Review (Oct 2023)
Simulation Game: The Pleasures of Disintegration in Sarduy’s Theater of Bodies
Abstract
What are the ways in which our imposed and asserted identities work in tandem to undermine a shared politics, by obfuscating the various political projects in which these identity positions are grounded? This essay examines the work that Severo Sarduy—novelist, poet, playwright, painter, critic—produced toward the end of his life to consider the uses and usefulness of simulation as an exercise counter to the assimilation projects of the nation. In entangling the modes of autobiography, cultural reportage, and literary criticism, “Simulation Game” also looks at a poetics for migrants and their children to understand exile and extant cultural dislocation. What I am interested in is not the elaboration of a theory so much as putting its conjectures to the test of flesh; and moreover, to return this practice to the body of the text, to accommodate a narrative form that can run alongside our thoughts.
Keywords
