Library of Rassegna iberistica

Series | Library of Rassegna iberistica
Edited book | America: The Tale of a Continent
Chapter | Il corpo malato e la crisi dell'identità unitaria

Il corpo malato e la crisi dell'identità unitaria

Ibridazione e metamorfosi in Guadalupe Nettel e Lina Meruane

Abstract

Illness seems to be a central theme for contemporary Latin-American literature. It is not only the object of the observation, but also a critical instrument to debilitate strong categories and binomes (such as male/female, sane/sick, alive/dead, human/non-human). This essay analyses the processes of hybridisation and metamorphosis related to illness in El huésped by Guadalupe Nettel and Fruta podrida by Lina Meruane. This examples show two different possibilities to embody the pathological experience: living against it and living with it. Illness could be an unpleasant partner, and there is no way to identify ourself with her, or a part of a wider us, opening to non-unitarian identity such as complexes and transforming organism. This consideration shows how Latin-American literature reflects on identity in a queer and posthuman way trough the metaphors that illness bring to the table.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Feb. 6, 2019 | Accepted: Feb. 26, 2019 | Published May 14, 2019 | Language: it

Keywords Illness • Metamorphosis • Hybridisation • Posthuman • Guadalupe Nettel • Diamela Eltit • Mario Bellatin • Identity • Queer • Body • Lina Meruane

Copyright © 2019 Francesco Fasano. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-319-9/030


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