Los archivos del malestar: estética y política de la infelicidad en la ficción centroamericana contemporánea (Ramiro Lacayo Deshón, Jacinta Escudos y Claudia Hernández)

Authors

  • Magdalena Perkowska Hunter College/The Graduate Center, CUNY

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18192/rceh.v44i1.5908

Abstract

This essay draws on a theoretical framework elaborated by Sianne Ngai (in Ugly Feelings, 2005) and Sara Ahmed (in The Promise of Happiness 2010), in order to analyze the critical meaning of negativity and unhappiness in the novels Así en la tierra, by Ramiro Lacayo Deshón (Nicaragua 2009), and El asesino melancólico, by Jacinta Escudos (El Salvador, 2015), along with a selection of short stories from Claudia Hernández’s Mediodía de frontera (El Salvador 2007). I contend that the frustration, apathy, uncertainty, and shame expressed within these texts, as well as the effects these dysphoric emotions produce in the reader, voice a critical stance towards the logic of neoliberalism that rules over contemporary societies, a logic that devalues lives and experiences that do not (cor)respond with the promise of happiness.

Published

2021-05-23