Enthymema (Jul 2019)

Trading Butterflies: The Representation of Asian Sex Workers in Vollmann and Houellebecq

  • Marco Malvestio

DOI
https://doi.org/10.13130/2037-2426/11921
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 0, no. 23
pp. 57 – 72

Abstract

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The article compares the representation of Asian sex workers in William T. Vollmann’s Butterfly Stories(1993) and Michel Houellebecq’s Platform(Plateforme, 2001). Both the novels are set in South-East Asia, and both involve an apologetic and romanticised description of the sex trade. By comparing the two novels, I argue that both authors’ treatments of the sex industry develop a critique of Western Orientalism, and at the same time sympathy for and complicity with the colonial power dynamics that regulate the relationships between Asian countries and the West.

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