Migración forzada, cosmopolitismo y memoria en la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea (El camino a Ítaca de Carlos Liscano, Más allá del invierno de Isabel Allende y Desierto sonoro de Valeria Luiselli)

Abstract

This thesis studies the representation of forced migrations in the novels El camino a Ítaca (1994) by Carlos Liscano, Más allá del invierno (2017) by Isabel Allende, and Desierto sonoro (2019) by Valeria Luiselli. Through a theoretical reflection centered on vernacular cosmopolitanism and memory, I examine the ethical and political impetus behind the recourse to hybrid narrative forms to represent stories of displacement and migration. I show how by representing the experiences of exclusion, lack of rights, and hostility towards precarious migrants, these works expose the fissures in the traditional conception of cosmopolitanism and its ideals of global citizenship. In my reading, these novels reveal the limitations of this ideal and can also be understood as an archive of vernacular cosmopolitans’ memories. Furthermore, I argue that the works intertwine the current violence of marginal migrations with the violence of the Latin American dictatorships in the XX century, connecting the figure of the disappeared with migrant-related in a transnational context. Finally, in evidencing how fiction about transnational displacements challenges the fixed categories migrants and refugees, as well as ideas of global mobility, this study critically addresses contemporary conceptual debates on forced migration, cosmopolitanism, and memory.