Cultural nomadism and the representation of otherness in Santiago Gamboa’s El síndrome de Ulises (2005)

Abstract

Fernando Aínsa maintains that contemporary Latin American narrative has been marked by the nomadic condition. In light of this observation, this article examines the figure of the cultural nomad in Colombian author Santiago Gamboa’s El síndrome de Ulises, to analyse the ways in which this subject negotiates and reconfigures their identity as a consequence of relocating to Paris. It argues that the traditional notions of nationality, origin, and personal history have been superseded by the concepts of work, relationships, and consumerism as key factors in the creation of identity and a sense of subjectivity. Moreover, it explores the culturally nomadic narrator’s engagement with current debates surrounding the ability of the ‘lettered’ intellectual to represent and encapsulate otherness in discourse, not only on an individual level but also in relation to the Europe-Latin America paradigm.