"Norteño" Imaginary Spaces: A Typology of the Fictional Towns of Guillermo Arriaga, David Toscana, and Alfredo Espinosa

Abstract

Narrative space-real or imaginary-is essential for the realization of a novel. An examination of fictive space in three contemporary Mexican norteno writers reveals they share certain commonalities. Also, the novels aregenerally set in small fictional towns that tend to be manifest in one of two forms: a realistically depicted place that doesn't exist in the real world either by name or location, or an existing town with a name change. Information on its founding or the detail given to its physical description aids the reader's willing suspension of disbelief in order to accept the invented place as a real community and to subsequently identify with and relate to it.