Feral children of insular spaces : The landscape of the other in Andrés Barba’s A Luminous Republic

Smid, Róbert (2025) Feral children of insular spaces : The landscape of the other in Andrés Barba’s A Luminous Republic. SHORT FICTION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, 15 (1). pp. 21-36. ISSN 2043-071X

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Abstract

In this article, I focus on how the figurations of feral children transform the jungle into a chronotope in Andrés Barba’s novella, entitled A Luminous Republic . First, I analyse the significance of the dichotomous arrangements of island spaces and how the narrative – incorporating the discourse of the locals – describes the children from the jungle as an invasive species, with which it also constitutes the binary opposition of us vs. them . In other words, I examine how the tight-knit community of San Cristóbal further isolates itself by trying to segregate the children who seem to have appeared out of the blue. Secondly, I argue that the figures of ‘primitives’ and children, as well as the processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis, become interchangeable due to the residents’ collective fear of regressing to unconscious and uncontrollable urges. Thirdly and finally, I examine zoopoetic figures in the text, i.e. the comparison of children with various types of animals, from wild beasts to insects. I argue that through the use of such tropes, the narrative not only elaborates on the children’s adaptive abilities, but also constitutes a discourse that seems appropriate to their existence, which is both spatially and temporally out of sync with that of the natives of San Cristóbal.

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