BETWEEN POETIC REASON AND THINKING WITH DE BODY

A READING OF CHAMANES ELÉCTRICOS EN LA FIESTA DEL SOL

Abstract

This article approaches the novel Chamanes eléctricos en la fiesta del sol [Electric Shamans in the Sun Celebrations] (2024) written by Mónica Ojeda. In the universe here contained, hybridization is the cornerstone of a world in which life and death, music and silence, fear and celebration interweave and penetrate bodies both to re-signify and to relocate them in a hostile environment. Three analysis elements are employed in approaching this text: firstly, the combined corporeal and emotional experience of music as a way of resistance to the objectification of the abused bodies, and as a way to give meaning to the existence of self; secondly, the emotional experience related to the creation of sound which, based on the traces of an extinct past, has the two-fold ability of making life a present experience and of repelling death. Thirdly, the recurrence of metamorphoses and transformations that blur the lines between the animal body and the human body. These metamorphoses also empower the feminine body to show that normalcy is but a mere construction among many others. This latter view, supported by the aboriginal Andean tradition, discredits the soleness of the epistemology of modern rationale.