Mikrostāsta jēdziens mūsdienu literatūrā

The glorious, overwrought, and ambitious modernism of the early 20th century has gradually been replaced by minimalism in art, architecture and other cultural expressions. In such a changing environment, minimalism trends also appear in the literature. Turning to the analysis of literary fiction over the last hundred years, critics of Romanic and Anglo-Saxon literature have come to the conclusion of the emergence of a new literary genre. In Anglo-Saxon literature, among many other names of this genre, the most recognizable name is flash fiction, while in Spanish, the term microrrelato has been established in the last decade. However, in Latvian literature, the characteristics of the genre correspond to minimas written by Aivars Eipurs. The paper aims to provide insight into the development and textual characteristics of flash fiction and to seek its equivalents in the literature of different Western nations. The study looks at the concept of flash fiction and its synonyms in English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Polish languages, includes definitions of flash fiction as an independent literary genre of a variety of authors and sets out the key features and examples. In addition to the concept of flash fiction, it includes concepts of intertextuality and ellipsis, which, along with humor and metafiction, are essential linguistic elements of flash fiction. Flash fiction merges different genres and their patterns into a new literary form consisting of certain linguistic, syntactical, and pragmatic texting techniques. In building the theoretical base of the study, the emphasis was placed on the critics of contemporary Spanish literature less known in Latvia, such as professor Irene Andrés-Suárez (b. 1948) of the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), Argentinian writer and literary critic David Lagmanovich (1927–2010) and Mexican literary critic Lauro Zavala (b. 1954). Examples of the genre are mostly referred to by Hispanic authors.

The Postnational Reception of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s La sombra del viento

Since the 1980s, the Spanish novel has become a constant presence in the international literary arena. This chapter deals with the degree in which contemporary Spanish literature tends to be received in a postnational frame of reference. The author focuses on the international reception of La sombra del viento (2001), Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s towering bestseller. The plot stands out for its strong heteronomous context—Barcelona before and after the Spanish Civil War—which makes Ruiz Zafón’s novel an interesting case study to test the postnational status of contemporary Spanish literature. The chapter focuses on four countries that hold an important or even central position in the world republic of letters: Germany, France, the U.S., and England.

“Voces y espejos” de Espido Freire. Hacia una estética de la perversión en el relato especular

Espido Freire (Bilbao, 1974) is one of the most interesting authors of contemporary Spanish literature. She has admitted on numerous occasions her preference for tales. “Voces y espejos” belonging to the storybook Juegos míos (2004), is offered as a paradigm of the obsessions that populate her work: the voices and mirrors as inducers of evil. The mise en abyme while splitting the narrator – widely studied by Lucien Dällenbach – permits the author to develop an alter ego what was so beloved by Borges and Cortázar. And here it aims at a hidden voice in us, which is subtle, barely perceptible, but always evil, which is intended to be reflected by the mirror dangerously. This story also presents the particularity of applying a double mise en abyme for its metaliterary character, what refers to the proper conception and reception of the story in a macabre triangle between the author, text and reader.