The limits of the legible: essay and fiction in latin-american literature

Abstract

The present text advances a reflection about the relations between essay and fiction in the literary work of three Latin-American writers, namely Osman lins, Diamela Eltit and Luis Gusmán. Theoretical notions of the French poststructuralism as that of écriture and that of (il)legibility constitute inevitable references for one to think of the essay in literary works marked by the subversion of the frontiers of genre. Far from presenting itself as merely the communicative reserve of fiction, the essay by these narrators offers itself as a discursive place for questioning practices themselves, which allows evincing the critical gesture that every literary word supposes in face of the conventional uses of language.