El libro de los desplazamientos: manifestaciones de heterogeneidad narrativa en Desierto sonoro de Valeria Luiselli

Abstract

Based on the contributions of Peruvian theorist and critic Anto­nio Cornejo Polar on narrative heterogeneity, this paper proposes an inter­pretation of Valeria Luiselli’s most recent novel, Desierto sonoro (2019). In this text I postulate that, without undermining the explicit sources which the novel alludes to and recovers, it is possible to link it to a deeply rooted narrative tradition in Latin America: that which represents sociocultural otherness. The tensions between the referent (the Chiricahua tribes of the 19th century and the children who cross the border into the United States in the 21st century) and the narrative perspectives that present the events involve different displacements (of characters, knowledge, diegetic levels, and narrative points of view) oriented to the representation of a harmonious encounter between two opposing sociocultural groups.