Aparición de la laguna invisible: La Llorona en "Hombre al agua" de Fabrizio Mejía Madrid

Abstract

Mexico City used to be seated on water. Over time, desiccation policies have changed the landscape and resulted in the virtual loss of all water traces. The goddess Cihuacoatl, Aztec mother goddess and a snake woman who had, among other dwellings, the lagoon, has been seen since pre-Hispanic times as a maiden dressed in white who cries loudly over the mysterious loss of her children. This character has mutated over the years, but it still lives in the city’s archetypes. She reappears in Fabrizio Mejia Madrid’s novel Man Overboard. This figure, mixed with the female character of the narrative, serves the function of confronting the city’s past with its present; it also deepens, through the subjectivity of the characters, into the various meanings of the lost water in Mexico City and the emptiness it has left in its inhabitants.