“An Almost Trivial Comicality. The Writing of Sergio Chejfec

Abstract

This paper presents an overview and comprehensive interpretation of the work of Argentinean writer Sergio Chejfec (Buenos Aires, 1956). The key for this reading is the concept of “comicality”, as the author himself defined in different places of his vaste narrative corpus, which consists of eleven novels (published between 1990 and 2012) and a book of short stories (first published in 2013). All those volumes are considered in this essay. Based on a detailed analysis of selected fragments, the interpretation projects, subsequently, its conclusions to the whole work (not forgetting the indication of possible connections with others authors). The paper begins on the consideration of joke and verbal wit, proceeds through analysis of comedy of situation and relations between humor and didacticism, to reach, at its end, the consideration of ambiguity as a defining element of Chefjec’s writing.