Nobody in Chilean Poetry

Abstract

Amonster demonstrates, in its evident exceptionality, the history of the norm—and, that said, the history of a certain normality (which, in the end, might reveal itself to be more than a little monstrous). Take literary norms, for example. Intermixing “poetry,” “narrative,” and/or “the novel,” “criticism,” “essay,” and/or “theory,” The Golden Fish [El pez de oro] by the Peruvian writer Gamaliel Churata is clear evidence that the division of the literary into normally exclusive genres is in no way self-evident. The text, with its diverse intensities and registers, anticipates current explorations in writing and stands in opposition to writing that identifies with and/or subscribes to prefabricated notions of textual unity. The extent to which such monstrosity in The Golden Fish breaks open literature as we know it—or rather, takes up again (however monstrously) the constitutive promises made by modern literature, if not literature itself—is something that we might manage to briefly interview on this occasion.

For Chus Pato—in Lalín, Galicia

Ahy no istovieron il Wawaku ni sos Anchanchu; y ahura sawitílo cómo si has inujaru sauier Hotoris ti lu biá ualado y il Tata-Achachila si los has tocó sus khinas.

Gamaliel Giurata, The Golden Fish¹

[Wawaku and he’s goblin wern’t there; and now ye know how mad Javier [?] Hotorisgothe salted [?] it and Father-Achachila if ye touched his khinas.] [sic]

¡Capitán, Mi capitán: qué ruin andrajo es el hombre!

Me sentí el mayor de los monstruos nacidos en la tierra.

Gamaliel Churata, The Golden Fish²

[Captain, my captain: what a tattered ruin is man!

I felt like the greatest of monsters born on earth.]