< Back to previous page

Publication

Fronteras climáticas: desterritorialización y transnacionalismo en Hipotermia de Álvaro Enrigue

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

Reflecting the transnational setting of the author’s residence in the US, Álvaro Enrigue’s short story cycle Hipotermia explores the impact of migration, as well as the way ethnic and cultural diversity is experienced in the United States. Enrigue adopts the perspective of a stranger who has recently obtained US citizenship and uses the possibilities offered by this paratopical position in order to make a critical survey of the deterritorialization ensuing from migration towards the US. He especially denounces how the obsession with ethnicity conceals socio-economic borders in US society, leading to social and spatial segregation and undermining the concept of a national identity. At the same time, Enrigue’s interest in deterritorializing experiences moves away from the experience of migration and focuses on a kind of (self-imposed) exile from the world which leads several protagonists to a state of emotional and social ‘hypothermia’. An analysis of the work’s structure, themes, narrative strategies and spatial settings will show how its focus on instable and border identities both mobilizes and deconstructs notions of authenticity, identity and territoriality.
Journal: Nuevo texto crítico
ISSN: 1940-9079
Issue: 53
Volume: 30
Pages: 220 - 237
Publication year:2019
Accessibility:Open