The correo de Bagdad, by José Miguel Varas: a novel of disill Usionment

Abstract

This study proposes to read Jos? Miguel Varas> El Correo tie Bagdad (1994:2002) as a polyphonic and neo-baroque novel according to the critical fields opened by the works of Milchail Bakhtin Severo Sarduy Iriemar Chiampi Linda Hutcheon and Sergio Rojas among others. In the novels written at the end of modernity polyphony and neo-baroque very often convey disappointment and perplexity as the "meta-narratives" (Lyotard 1979) which structured the modem world arc dying. In the case ofEl Correo tie Bagda4 as in all of Varas' fictional works those "meta-narratives" are closely attached to the "national context" as Jaime Concha writes (Concha 320)