Narrar al sesgo: diálogos entre dos orillas en torno al horror
Abstract
The article analyzes the close dialogue between Argentine and Uruguayan literature as to the most appropriate and effective way to narrate evil, horror and extreme violence, a question that lies at the very nexus between ethics, aesthetics and politics. Taking the short story « Deutches requiem » by Borges as a foundational text of an aesthetic that makes elusiveness its constructive principle, the essay then examines the stories of Julio Cortázar and the Uruguayan Omar Prego Gadea, who may be the closest Southern Cone writer to Cortázar and the one to most honor Cortázar in his own work. The article analyzes in particular the relationship between « Grafitti » [« Graffiti »], a Cortázar short story included in Queremos tanto a Glenda [We Love Glenda So Much] and « Función nocturna » [« Nocturnal Function »], a Prego Gadea story published in Sólo para exiliados [For Exiles Only]. The latter collection features allusions to and epigraphs from Cortázar’s work, as well as the presence of Cortázar as a character, all of which signal the two writers’ aesthetic and political closeness. The article also considers the production of authors such as Elvio Gandolfo (La reina de las nieves [The Snow Queen] and Ferrocarriles Argentinos [Argentine Railroads]), in whose works resonate the same « slanted » mode of reference and strategies of avoidance of explicit representation of facts that are characteristic of Cortázar and Prego Gadea.
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