Cartographies of horror in the Buenos Aires suburbs. Ruptures, spills and exchanges in Enriquez, Reyes and Ávalos Blacha´s narratives

Abstract

In recent Argentine narrative there is a series of novels and stories that practice a symbolic utilization of the Buenos Aires suburban area, by playing precisely with the erasure of the limits, always imprecise, between the urban and the degraded and marginal territories. It is possible to detect in these representations a turn towards environmental horror, in which anthropogenic action is a central axis (Tabas). In its combination with gothic realism or dystopian science fiction, Dolores Reyes, Mariana Enriquez and Leandro Ávalos Blacha work on this new monstrous figuration that has problematic topics such as the road, contaminated waters or wastelands. Rewritings of foundational fictions of barbarism –and often their celebration– focus on the vanishing edges and connection of central spaces with peripheral ones. These narratives can be read as a rewriting of tropes of global gothic horror and represent subjectivities in symbiosis with these hyperdegraded spaces (Davis). The reading will be supported by the analysis of some stories by Mariana Enriquez (“Bajo el agua negra”, “El desentierro de la angelita”, “La Virgen de la tosquera” and “El carrito”), the novels by Dolores Reyes Cometierra and Miseria and Los Quilmers, by Leandro Ávalos Blacha.