Improper Exiles and Profane Pilgrimage: Juan José Saer and Witold Gombrowicz

Abstract

After having moved to France in 1968 and having written a large part of his work abroad, Juan José Saer begins to periodically return to Argentina from the eighties, and writes a series of texts on the subject of return and of exile in which he alludes to the figure of Witold Gombrowicz. In this work we will investigate the links, correspondences and differences between the two writers. As we will see, Saer places Gombrowicz in two series of travelers and intellectuals. On the one hand, an anachronistic and timeless series that connects him with travelers from dissimilar times and which highlights his unique perception of the national landscape; on the other, a historical series that returns the Polish writer to the literary rivalries of his time (Borges, Caillois and the Sur group). Each of these inscriptions opens a suggestive contemporaneity between the poetics and the improper exiles of Saer and Gombrowicz. The latter's “outside perspective” will allow Saer to radicalize an exiled and eccentric writer figure capable of resisting both the “infallible” values of Europe and the duties of national identification; and also configure disruptive ways of perceiving the zona’s landscape on his returns to the country.

Keywords

• juan josé saer
• witold gombrowicz
• exilio
• nación
• paisaje nacional