First steps towards Japan: intertextual links betweenSalón de bellezaand The House of the Sleeping Beauties

Authors

  • David Issai Saldaña Moncada Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15174/rv.v14i29.574

Abstract

This work addresses the relationship between The House of the Sleeping Beauties (Nemureru bijo, 1961) by Japanesewriter Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1968) and Salón de belleza (1994) by Mexican-Peruvian writer Mario Bellatin (1960). At first, some features of the reception of Japanese literature in Mexico and Peru are considered, to define the context in which Bellatin begins to develop his interest in Japan. Then the link between both works is analyzed, perceptible on several levels: from the possibility of a structural intertextual relationship, through an epigraph; it moves towards the shared use of a narrative voice and the handling of space as a place of transgression; to formulating thematic parallels that point to transcendental readings. By taking into account the author's own comments on his relationship with Kawabata's literature, it is possible to reinforce the bridge between the works, since they address on both the stylistic and the thematic, and stand as a first approach to Japanese literature. Based on this, it is possible to observe how the desire to open Bellatin's texts to other literary traditions invites us to rethink the interactions between Japanese literature and its own aesthetics, which will give way to a link that no longer depends on the discursive intermediation of European Orientalism but on a reading vis à vis between literatures.

Author Biography

David Issai Saldaña Moncada, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

PhD in Literature from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He has participated in national and international colloquiums and congresses and has published articles in academic journals of national circulation. Likewise, in 2015 he carried out a research stay at the Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, in Germany. Besides studying subjects such as parody, irony and metafiction in Latin American narrative, his other field of study is Orientalism in Mexican narrative and the Japanese novel of the 20th century.

Currently doing a postdoctoral stay with the project La construcción del vacío: ficciones y símbolos de lo japonés en la narrativa mexicana (1980-2015), attached to the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias, UNAM.

Among his main publications are: "El vacío de la forma: una interpretación mística de la influencia japonesa en la poesía de Aurelio Asiain", in Atisbos a lo inefable. Guía para una lectura de la poesía desde la óptica mística, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM, 2019; "La profundidad de la percepción: vínculos entre la mística y el budismo zen en Sergio Mondragón", in Los ríos sonorosos de la palabra (Mística y Poesía). Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas, UNAM, 2018; "Dimensiones de la parodia en Dos crímenes de Jorge Ibargüengoitia” in Texto crítico. México: Instituto de Investigaciones Lingüístico Literarias-Universidad Veracruzana, 2017.

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Published

2021-11-22

How to Cite

Saldaña Moncada, D. I. (2021). First steps towards Japan: intertextual links betweenSalón de bellezaand The House of the Sleeping Beauties. Valenciana, 14(29), 103–132. https://doi.org/10.15174/rv.v14i29.574

Issue

No. 29 (2022): Valenciana 29, enero-junio 2022

Section

Artículos

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