Abstract

MEDINA, Humberto. Cosmopolitism and Identity in La casa de Cartón by Martín Adán. Letras [online]. 2021, vol.92, n.136, pp.76-89.  Epub Dec 29, 2021. ISSN 0378-4878.  http://dx.doi.org/10.30920/letras.92.136.7.

​The style of La casa de cartón, by Martín Adán, has been catalogued as avant-garde due to the metaphorical use of language, the fragmented structure of the narrative and a descriptive rhythm that leads to its association with a “cinematographic” language. In this article I analyze the novel’s style as a function of representing the complex relationships between Latin American spaces and spaces perceived as cosmopolitan in the first half of the 20th Century, such as Europe and the United States. The problem of localization, as defined by Rosenberg, lead to negotiation between national and international spaces and places through the cinematographic montage experience. Adán draws on forms of modern experience, in particular perception influenced by the technology of cinema, to construct a language that allows for the “montage” of local and cosmopolitan spaces, and thus depicts a Lima neighbourhood as a node of cultural influence and identity construction. Adán’s Avant-garde writing not only shows a formal experimentation and a drive to seek new writing forms, but also, this type of writing, is a form of negotiation between cosmopolitan centres and national places in which experience, and the symbolic presentation of the world, is also a form of mediation a visual inscription.

Keywords : Avant-garde; Latin American Literature; Film and Literature; La casa de carton; Martín Adán.

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