Clara Sánchez: Geographies of Dystopia
Keywords:
Clara Sánchez, Urban Space, Non-Places, Postmodernity, Dystopia, Últimas noticias del paraíso, Un millón de lucesAbstract
The relationship between urban space and a disenfranchised identity is foundational to Clara Sánchez's narrative. The new urban landscapes (malls, airports, hotels, big office buildings) frame and define processes of identity and interaction based on the absence of history and the absence of communication, two tendencies that intertwine in what Bauman calls the "pathology of public space". This essay attempts to explore the various dystopic landscapes in the novels Últimas noticias del paraíso (2000) and Un millón de luces (2004) and, more precisely, to analyze their relation to the concept of non-place proposed by Marc Augé. The proliferation of non-places in Clara Sánchez's narrative sets the context for the disillusionment that overshadows a society whose subjects are either assimilated or discarded based on their effectiveness as producers and consumers. Ultimately, the representation of non-places invites us to examine critically the multiple dysfunctions generated by the globalization processes in which Spanish society has been hastily immersed in recent decades.
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