Narratives of contemporary female diaspora: an analysis of “Algum lugar”, by Paloma Vidal

Abstract

Paloma Vidal, in her first novel, Algum lugar (2009), presents a "writing of the self" that enables a stroll around some major modern metropolises while we travel along the pages of a young student and teacher’s diary. Her text, marked by references to canonical works and authors, is based on reminiscences that turn the work into an attempt to find and identify oneself with spaces, people and other texts, in the past and present. Moreover, the Argentine writer, who lives in Brazil since her childhood, discusses in her novel the deterritorialization condition of the migrant, who, by living in another country, faces the loneliness and the consequences of diaspora. This article aims at building a reflection on such topic, which occupies a central place in the current scene, caused by the globalization of culture that appears in literary works such as Paloma Vidal’s. The analyzes are supported by references derived mainly from Cultural Studies, such as Edward Said (2003), Zygmunt Bauman (1998, 2001) and Stuart Hall (2003).