Come funziona una città duale: i discorsi sulla povertà e l’invisibilizzazione della baraccopoli in La Villa di César Aira

Abstract

César Aira’s novel La Villa is not about the life in the shanty town: it tells the way shanty towns are perceived by the other city dwellers. Instead of focusing on the villa miseria, it focuses on the role it plays in the city’s self-representation. The social stereotypes that are commonly associated to the shanty town are ironically assimilated into the narrative perspective, allowing the text to enquire obliquely the social discourses that nourish and  support  its construction as a foreign body inside the city.