Acceso usuarios
Vinodh Venkatesh
The rise of Chile, and particularly the capital city of Santiago, has been heralded in fin de siècle discussions of globalization and economic growth as a true success story. Through periods of depression, crisis, and authoritarian rule, the country has surpassed regional competitors and managed to post astonishingly high economic growth rates. The following pages include a comparative study of the representation of the city in reference to subjectivity in Alberto Fuguet’s generationally emblematic Mala onda (1991) and the lesser-known work of Hernán Rodríguez Matte’s Barrio Alto (2004). Both texts cultivate the space of the barrio alto as a primal referent in the development of their narratives and their narrators. I argue that Rodríguez Matte’s work is a novelistic evolution of Mala onda, reflective of the changes in the urban spaces of Santiago as we enter the 21st century.
