Novel and the City

Abstract

Classical literary theory defines the novel as a genre with certain principles of composition, which was historically derived from the epic and peaked in the 19th century. However, Mikhail Bakhtin explored another approach to the novel in his monograph «Epic and Novel» which analyzes the novel as a narrative force in constant development. Miguel Vitagliano (1961, Floresta, Buenos Aires), writer, critic, and professor of the department of Literary Studies III at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) also shares such a view of the novel. In this interview the author draws a parallel between the novel and the city, which is an amalgam of customs, discourses, memories and experiences. Both the city and the novel are inherently heterogenous. The prominent Argentinian novelist, who, by the way, writes all his works by hand, allows us to take a look at his creative process and his meticulous work with contemporary Buenos Aires speech, the capital’s dialect in the 19th century and that of London in the early 20th century «translated» into Spanish. The interview includes some fragments of his novels, including «Buried» (2018), winner of Eduardo Mallea Prize and translated into Italian, and «Journey to Things» (2023) about William Hudson, Argentinian naturalist and writer of English descent. Both works will form part of a trilogy about the power of the novel over History and the possibilities that the novel offers as a literary genre.

Keywords

• city
• novel
• historical novel
• discourse
• narrative
• buenos aires
• contemporary argentine literature
• argentine culture
• argentine spanish