El espacio del mal en Estrella distante, de Roberto Bolaño

Abstract

The article aims to study Roberto Bolaño’s novel Estrella Distante (Distant Star), and proposes a reading interested in the relationship between the representations of evil and the configuration of spaces in the novel to raise a discussion around the spatialization of evil. First, we will try to approach what we understand by evil in Bolaño’s literature, reflecting on literary, psychoanalytic, and philosophical discourses. Then, we will approach a definition of spaces in narration to establish a relationship between evil and space in the novel. This reading seeks to point out that in the constitution of the narrated spaces, the ubiquity of evil is perceived—an evil that seems to fill all spaces, but that is never specifically distinguishable or localizable. Also, this proposal seeks to contribute to renewing views on Bolaño’s works and directly implies making the spaces of violence more complex as a proposition of his work, since space is not a mere ornament or background for the narrative work, but rather a fundamental element of the diegesis, since it includes the powers and the confrontations distinguishable in the narrative, which can help us perceive the path that evil takes through the space of the narrative.