Abstract
The representation of earthquakes (and its aftershocks) is a recurring theme in Juan Villoro’s writings. This theme is present in his chronicles, novels and essays in which the imminence of the end and the fortuitous gift of momentary survival trigger meditations that intertwine literature, personal memory, collective and community experience, ethics and politics. This paper discusses two of Villoro’s books in which earthquakes take centre stage. The first one is 8.8 El miedo en el Espejo (2010), “a fragmented chronicle” written after the author experienced the Chilean earthquake of 2010, which also echoes the Mexican earthquake of 1985. The second book, Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico (2018), is dedicated to Mexico City and ends with a fragment about the last quake to jolt the capital in 2017 and with a litany, originally published two days after this last (at the time) catastrophe. Metaphoric connections between the seismic events and the literary, the political and the possibilities of life in common are explored throughout the paper.
Keywords:
literature and catástrofe; Juan Villoro; chronicle