Falsification, robberies, and irreverence in the periphery : the case of Borges and Kyriakidis
Part of : Γράμμα : περιοδικό θεωρίας και κριτικής ; Vol.13, No.1, 2005, pages 165-182
Issue:
Pages:
165-182
Section Title:
"Centers", "peripheries", and literary politics
Author:
Abstract:
This article examines the influence of Jorge Luis Borges syncretist aesthetics on the work of the contemporary Greek writer, Achilleas Kyriakidis. Borgesian aesthetics emerged as a reaction to the political, ideological, and literary debates that prevailed in Argentina in the first half of the twentieth century. Since the 1 980s, Kyriakidis has employed Borgesian syncretism in order to create, as in the case of Borges, a current in the history of Modern Greek literature, which is distinct from the overtly engaged fiction of direct political and social commitment. Kyriakidean writing in fact emerges as a highly effective response to the longstanding debates on national identity, bypassing the discourse of nationalism. In particular, both Borges and Kyriakidis place hybridization and creolization at the heart of literary and cultural production within and outside the borders of Argentina and Greece, underscoring at the same time the notions of falsification, robbery, and irreverence in the countries of the so-called periphery.
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