Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2003
Publication Title
Ojáncano: revista de literatura española
First Page
69
Last Page
78
Additional Publication URL
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/366048716
Abstract
In the 1990s Luis Goytisolo explores the possibilities of popular fiction, adapting various genres (travel, mystery, erotic, historical) to accomodate his long-term project of unpacking Western Values. Indeed, Goytisolo’s flirtation with the best-selling genre fiction constitutes a postmodern gesture of “complicitous critique.”For example, in Escalera hacia el cielo (1999) Goytisolo exploits the erotic genre to challenge the traditional paradigm of the dominant male gaze and the objectified female body and to offer instead expressions of mutuality. In Mzungo (1996), Goytisolo engages the travel novel to undermine the culturally dominant position of the white European male who “discovers” an unknown culture/geography and explains it in terms of his own, which parades as universal. However, as opposed to the hopeful theme of mutuality we see in Escalera hacia el cielo, Mzungo offers a much darker vision of humanity and our potential for peaceful coexistence.
Rights
This article was originally published in Ojáncano: revista de literatura española.
Recommended Citation
Carney, Terri M. "Good Intentions Aren't Enough: Intellectuals and Violence in Luis Goytisolo's Mzungo." Ojáncano: revista de literatura española 24 (2003): 69-72. Available from: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/405