SUVANNABHUMI (수완나부미)

Korea Institute for ASEAN Studies (부산외대 아세안연구원)
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Death and the Inoperative Community in the Works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Merlinda Bobis

  • Prado, John Andrew M. del (Comparative Literature and Comparative Culture, Korea University)
  • Received : 2021.11.11
  • Accepted : 2022.01.15
  • Published : 2022.01.31
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Abstract

Gabriel García Márquez's short story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" ["El ahogado más hermoso del mundo," 1968] and the novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold [Crónica de una muerte anunciada, 1981] and Merlinda Bobis's novel Fish-Hair Woman (2012) and short story "O Beautiful Co-Spirit" (2021) feature unusual scenarios of death: the arrival of a drowned man's corpse at an island; the inaction of the community to stop the foretold death of a supposedly-innocent man; a woman with long hair that can fetch dead bodies at the bottom of the village river; and a Filipino Catholic and a Malaysian Muslim working together to prepare an Italian Catholic's corpse for a funeral. These narratives demand critical attention as all deaths make the community's existence meaningful as they alter its social reality. Looking into the works of the aforementioned Colombian writer and Filipino writer and unveiling how death affects the community, this paper relies on Jean-Luc Nancy's theory on death and inoperative community.

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References

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