Textual and Cultural Hybridity in Ricardo Piglia's Artificial Respiration and Rodrigo Fresn's Argentine History

摘要

The 1980s and 1990s were two of the most prolific decades in the area of literature in Argentina. New distinctively postmodernist forms of fiction emerged characterised by textual hybridity and a strong interest in reinterpreting the historical past. I will argue that this postmodern textual hybridity is much more than a mere aesthetic choice or “style”; it is, in fact, a cultural and aesthetic response to a society that defines itself as culturally hybrid. I will discuss why the country's cultural crossings are the result not only of historical developments such as colonisation, European immigration, modernity and modernisation but also of recent globalisation processes such as deterritorialisation and the circulation of different symbolic imaginaries through the mass media. Finally, I will argue how textual and cultural hybridity articulates a debate concerning the issues of national identity in Ricardo Piglia's Artificial Respiration (1980) and Rodrigo Fresn's Argentine History (1991).