On Affect, Violence, Vulnerability, and Community: Jenisjoplin

Abstract

Jenisjoplin (2017) by Uxue Alberdi is an unsettling and formally innovative novel, as it recalls—through the account by its protagonist Nagore Vargas, nicknamed Jenisjoplin—the convulsive socio-historical reality of the last four decades in the Basque Country. This article offers a contextualization of Alberdi’s novel in the landscape of contemporary Basque authors and bases its analysis on theories connected with the affective turn. It is within that theoretical framework that such notions as violence experienced at the social level in ETA and post-ETA times, illness and vulnerability, and the possibility of individual and social reconstruction are explored. The narrative discourse in Jenisjoplin intertwines the social and political scenario of violence with the subjective experiences of the protagonist, which focus on family, friends, lovers, and illness, but also with frequent analytical and critical reflections on the nature of the Basque community and on the fight for national independence, the medical diagnosis and treatment for AIDS, and the struggle for a society where social justice will eventually prevail. Contributions by Mari Jose Olaziregi, Sara Ahmed, Laurent Berlant, Judith Butler, Susan Sontag, and Roberto Esposito, among others, form the theoretical backdrop for the analysis of the novel.