LATIN AMERICAN WRITING IN THE UNITED STATES:  Intertextual Encounters and Narrative Memory in Norte (2011) by Edmundo Paz Soldán

Thania Munoz D.

doi:10.23870/marlas.166

Abstract

In Norte (2011) Edmundo Paz Soldan explores multiple perspectives of immigration from Latin America to the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries. The narratives of each of the four protagonists Michelle, Martin, Jesus, and Sergeant Fernandez characterize complex relationships with the United States and with their own country of origin. Paz Soldan establishes an encounter between different genres to highlight Latin American’s migratory experience in the U.S., to examine the American prison system, the university, undocumented immigration, non-English speakers, violence, and border crossing. In this article, it will be argued that through different narratives memories this novel reflects, from an American space, upon 21st Latin American writing that is trying to find its own place in United States. The term narrative memory used in this analysis names the reconciliatory encounter between the literary past and present that regulates this novel, one that can be analyzed by its intertextual encounters: shuttling between references to the Hernandez brothers’ comic books, vampire narratives by Laurell K. Hamilton, detective fiction, and Juan Rulfo’s “Luvina”.

Highlights

Bolivian writer-scholar Edmundo Paz Soldán currently lives in the United States and has a long literary career, with published novels and short stories, in addition to contributions to national and international newspapers
Through the characters of Michelle, Jesús, and Sergeant Fernández Paz Soldán establishes an encounter between different literary genres, that highlights Latin Americans’ migratory experiences in the U.S, as it examines the prison system, the university, undocumented immigration, violence, and border crossing
It will be argued that, through different types of narrative memory, this novel reflects upon twenty-first century Latin American writing that is trying to find its place in the United States

Summary

Introduction

Bolivian writer-scholar Edmundo Paz Soldán currently lives in the United States and has a long literary career, with published novels and short stories, in addition to contributions to national and international newspapers. The topics of his works are varied, and he frequently examines Latin America and its relationship with the U.S in his fiction writings. The characters’ backstories are different, and they negotiate varying relationships with the United States while simultaneously maintaining a complex relationship with their countries of origin This analysis will centralize the stories of Michelle, Jesús, and Sergeant Fernández to examine the literary genre traditions with which the author engages. This study will demonstrate that in narrating the stories Paz Soldán reformulates genres and literary traditions through his innovative use of Juan Rulfo’s story “Luvina,” combined with techniques of zombie and detective modalities

Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies

Narrative Memory and Reconciliatory Genre Encounters