Ciudades Colaterales: las Ciudades Narradas de la Frontera México-Estados Unidos en Novelas Recientes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to carry out a critical comparative study of the narrated cities of the Mexico-US border in a corpus of recent urban novels. One of the central questions is the formulation of a model based on the literary representation of events such as the implementation, assimilation, and consolidation of global imagery in border cities. The collateral city model is made up of a series of orders which we call urban panoramas. The panoramas we analyze correspond to hypermasculinities, traumatic memory and transnational allegality. The first panorama refers to the representation of the city in relation to narrative conflicts derived from the masculine and feminine, focusing on practices that correspond to the model of hegemonic masculinities. The second panorama deals with the representation of the dynamics between memory and oblivion, an element that characterizes peripheral spaces. The last panorama examines the conflicts that arise from the tensions between the legal and the illegal that are reflected throughout the urban space. To approach the model in question, the following novels are studied: Nostalgia de la sombra (2002), by Eduardo Antonio Parra; 2666 (2004), by Roberto Bolaño; Al otro lado (2008), by Heriberto Yépez; and Indio borrado (2014), by Luis Felipe Lomelí.