ARCHIVING LIFE, ORDERING BECOMING: THE CONTAINMENT OF ALTERITY IN A VIDA PRIVADA DAS ÁRVORES, BY ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66104/bwexvv29Keywords:
Ecocriticism, Literature, Archive, Becoming, PosthumanismAbstract
The article analyzes A vida privada das árvores, by Alejandro Zambra, based on the hypothesis that the novel unsettles modern archival rationality by making absence its central thematic and formal motor. Set during the night in which Verónica does not return home, the narrative follows Julián’s attempts to stabilize life’s contingency through stories that domesticate both human and nonhuman alterities. In dialogue with posthumanist perspectives, ecocriticism, and the contributions of Donna Haraway, Greg Garrard, Michel Foucault, and Byung-Chul Han, it argues that the novel exposes the limits of the impulse to order the world. The anticlimactic ending reveals life in its rhizomatic character, highlighting the insufficiency of the novel as a form capable of enclosing becoming.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Leandro Moreto da Rosa, Ernani Mügge

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