Zatrute (ciało)przestrzenie: ekohorror w powieści "Fruta podrida" Liny Meruane

Abstract

Fear related to climate change has become an indispensable element of contemporary world literature, including Latin American literature. To describe this global problem, modern humanities and literature employ new tools such as the genre of ecohorror, which allows for research into literature while considering a non-human perspective. In this article, I explore the facets of ecohorror, emerging from ecocritical thought, in the novel Fruta podrida [Rotten fruit] by the Chilean author Lina Meruane. I examine the main characters — half-sisters María and Zoila — focusing on their complex relationship, centered on the conflict arising from the illness of the younger sister. An essential part of my work is to describe how, through the fusion of the concept of the diseased body with the decaying fruit, Meruane creates a modern narrative style. Then, using Michel Foucault’s term “biopolitics,” I present the difficult situation of the collective protagonists in Meruane’s novel, also highlighting the specificity of the region in which the story is set. Another element of this article is emphasizing the importance of the character Zoila and the theme of her relationship with the ailing body, which reflects the contemporary concept of the body in the age of posthumanist transformations. Drawing on Susan Sontag’s ideas and her metaphor of illness, I analyze Meruane’s bodily narrative and the “language of the organism,” as named by the protagonist, which, in the context of the novel, becomes one of the main conceptual and interpretative tools. In my work, I demonstrate that the prose of the Chilean author represents new trends in contemporary Latin American literature, fitting into the ecocritical discourse on global issues.