Spaces of Madness

Insane Asylums in Argentine Narrative

By (author) Eunice Rojas

Not available to order

Publication date:

17 December 2014

Length of book:

226 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739190876

Spaces of Madness examines the role of the insane asylum in Argentine prose works published between 1889 and 2011. From a place of existential exile at the turn of the twentieth century to a symbolic representation of Argentine society during and immediately subsequent to the Dirty War, the figure of the asylum in Argentine literature has evolved along with the institution itself. The authors studied in Spaces of Madness include Manuel T. Podestá, Roberto Arlt, Leopoldo Marechal, Julio Cortázar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Juan José Saer, Abelardo Castillo, Ricardo Piglia, and Luisa Valenzuela.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Asylums: Manuel Podestá, Horacio Quiroga, and Roberto Arlt
Chapter 2: The Asylum in the Works of Julio Cortázar and Adolfo Bioy Casares
Chapter 3: The Schizophrenic Machine in Ricardo Piglia’s Asylum
Chapter 4: Luisa Valenzuela's Passage through the Asylum
Chapter 5: Juan José Saer's Committed Detective
Chapter 6: The Asylum as Juan José Saer's Argentine Founding Myth
Chapter 7: The Poet as Patient: The Literary Life of Jacobo Fijman
Conclusion
Works Cited
About the Author

The title of this well-researched and compelling book says it all... Spaces of Madness offers a compelling conspectus of how literary and non-literary discourse has shaped the evolution of the asylum in Argentinian society.