Critical Dystopias in Spanish: memory as an Act of Resilience

Abstract

[EN] The lines in the epigraph, “But where there is danger, / A rescuing element grows as well” (Hölderlin 71), highlight a quality of resilience that can be observed in the capacity of human beings for endurance and recovery when they find themselves under extreme pressure. The present chapter approaches the study of human resilience through the lens of memory and its centrality in the recovery of individual and collective self-esteem by focusing on a selection of recent “critical dystopias” (Moylan) written in Spanish. We suggest that the selected works can be understood as ascribing to the “ethics of defeat” (Amar Sánchez) and “reflective nostalgia” (Boym), at the same time as they investigate the potentiality of “cultural agencies” (Sommer) for the development of resilience. Furthermore, we argue that the chosen dystopian narratives reject the consensus ethics characteristic of contemporary writing (Rancière) and defend, instead, an ethics of conviction (Badiou).