Abstract

RAMIREZ, Susana F.. Devastating Readings in Insensatez and Moronga by Horacio Castellanos Moya. CELEHIS [online]. 2022, n.43, pp.11-20. ISSN 2313-9463.

In the novels Insensatez (2004) and Moronga (2018), we interrogate the ways of reading, the effects, the uses of reading and the circumstances in which the characters carry out this activity, taking into account that such fictionalization cooperates in tracing the moral, social, cultural horizons that surround the reading activity of a stage (Zanetti 2010). In both texts, reading situations have a constructive function. The protagonists -Salvadoran migrants in exile- read documents related to the tragic events that affected the Central American isthmus in the twentieth century and that challenge them (testimonies, in Insensatez; declassified emails and cables in Moronga). Reading, exercised only for remuneration and devoid of hedonism, reveals a subjectivity overwhelmed by the traumatic experiences of extreme political violence: the act of reading, instead of refuge or escape from the hostile environment, is for the characters a reason for disturbance, because it triggers the memory towards the frightening events of the recent past, it revives the anguish experienced, reconfigures the perception of one's own identity and confronts them with their present situation, full of fear and uncertainty regarding the future.

Keywords : Read; Documents; Disturbance; Memory; Identity.

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