Dissident Narratives: science fiction and dystopia as heterogeneous and hybrid literature in Latin America

Abstract

Science fiction in Latin America is intertwined with the diverse realities that converge in the Latin American identity, generating a rich discourse that enables its consolidation as a genre in expansion. For its part, Latin American literary dystopia is a relatively recent subgenre of science fiction in Latin America, possessing a particular fertility, which projects critical visions on social discontents that represent oppression, inequality and suffering for some groups. In the context of cultural studies, in this text the notion of heterogeneous literature proposed by Antonio Cornejo Polar (1978), serves as a support to observe Latin American dystopia as a heterogeneous literature situated at the crossroads of societies and cultures, thus reflecting the tensions arising from the cultural, historical and political diversity of the region. In the same direction, the analysis is enriched with the notion of hybridity, by Néstor García Canclini (1990), to point out the structural and symbolic mixture in the configuration of the discourse of Latin American dystopia, which is currently permeated by popular culture, the processes of modernization in the continent and globalization. The reflections will be exemplified with some dystopian works of Latin American authors of the last two decades considered as counter-narratives of canonical science fiction and decadent social trends. Thus, in Latin America the genre maintains a posture of resistance and a hopeful vision, while incorporating multiple voices, realities and narrative forms that contradict the pre-established molds of the genre.