Hybrid Identity and the Utopian Impulse in the Postmodern Spanish-American Comic Novel

Paul R. McAleer

doi:10.1017/9781782045601

An important but often overlooked function of comedy is its intrinsic relation to questions of identity. This relationship, furthermore, is connected to another traditional feature of comedy: the utopian impulse. This book analyses these functions of comedy in the novels of four key postmodern Spanish-American writers: Gustavo Sainz, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Fernando Vallejo and Jaime Bayly. Focusing on the correlation between changing concepts of identity and the hybrid cultural context of the late 20th-century, it examines the issues of individual and social identities expressed by these authors in their inscription and distortion of the comic genre as well as in their usage of different modes of comedy. It views the novels' comic aspects as symptoms of hybridity, which, according to many theorists, have brought about the dissolution of concepts, such as the self and society, and utopian modernity. These symptoms are studied in tandem with the individual themes of the novels, such as gender, sexuality, class and global migration, as well as the 'post-national' question of Peruvian, Colombian and Mexican identity.

Paul McAleer is Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Hull.

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Metrics

Total number of HTML views: 0

Total number of PDF views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

Total views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Hybrid Identity and the Utopian Impulse in the Postmodern Spanish-American Comic Novel

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-vi

Acknowledgements
pp vii-viii

1 - Contextualising the Debate: The European Comic Tradition and the Question of Context
pp 1-48

2 - Gustavo Sainz’s La princesa del Palacio de Hierro: Comedy and the Female Character in Transnational Mexico
pp 49-74

3 - Comic Identity and Cultural Exile in Bryce Echenique’s La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña
pp 75-98

4 - Black Comedy and Identity Loss in Fernando Vallejo’s La virgen de los sicarios: On the Road to Dystopia
pp 99-122

5 - Jaime Bayly’s La noche es virgen: Comic Queer Identities in the Era of Transnationalism
pp 123-146

Utopia, Comedy and Latin American Utopianism: Is This Really the End?
pp 147-160

Bibliography
pp 161-168

Index
pp 169-171

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

Hybrid Identity and the Utopian Impulse in the Postmodern Spanish-American Comic Novel

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

Contents

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information