Sin orquídeas ni agua. Colapso ecológico, espacio privado y democracia en Centroamérica

Absztrakt

In this essay I examine the short stories “La flor del Espíritu Santo”, by Jacinta Escudos and “Otro zoo”, by Rodrigo Rey Rosa. Through their use of anticipatory fiction and the fantastic genre, both authors allude or refer to the extreme process of capital accumulation which has been taking place in the last decades, suggesting the onset of a new geopolitical order, largely determined by the destruction of ecology. By means of a strategy of de-familiarization that combines a first person narrator and the dislocation of time and space, both encourage their readers to revisit the democratic present of the region. In spite of the notorious pessimism in the public sphere, both texts transpire a moderate optimism in the private realm, related to intimate practices of resistance, such as creativity, ecological solidarity, and the acceptance of generational change.