Italianidad siniestra y degeneración familiar: algunas claves góticas para “El desierto y su semilla” de Jorge Barón Biza

Abstract

As an anomalous and transgressive novel, Jorge Barón Biza’s The Desert and Its Seed (1998) has become a classic of Argentine literature in recent decades. In this paper we are interested in approaching its reading based on its link with that “Gothic mode” read by critics as a perverse nucleus omnipresent in Rio de la Plata literary tradition. We will focus on two aspects that could be considered cardinal: (a) the uncanny representation of the Italian and (b) the recurring motif in Argentine literature of the decline of old oligarchic families.