Urban Bildungsroman: Notes on Narratives of Formation in Santiago de Chile and Mexico City

Abstract

This study explores the incidence of the city in diverse bildungsromans contextualized in Santiago de Chile and Mexico City. In order to perform the analysis some novelists, writing from 1977 to 2006, were selected: the Chilean authors Jorge Marchant Lazcano, Alberto Fuguet, Roberto Fuentes y Marcelo Sánchez; and the Mexican authors Gustavo Sáinz, José Emilio Pacheco, Juan Villoro y Guillermo Fadanelli. Initially, two typological studies are shown; these typologies were developed over the canonical corpus of European bildungsromans, and then, a group of traits, corresponding to the spatial axis as the analysis vector, were identified and separated. The theoretical background chosen were the analyses of Marianne Hirsh, Anikken Telnes Ivesen and, parcially, Franco Moretti’s analysis about the European and American bildungsroman.