Testimony of the ineffable. Narrative technique and rhetoric in El deshabitado (2016), by Javier Sicilia

Abstract

El deshabitado (Grijalbo, 2016) may be defined as a testimony-fiction given that it is a complex and overwhelming first-person story written by the poet Javier Sicilia, who is himself represented as protagonist and witness of the horrible social causes of the death of his son Juanelo and the consequences that the fact itself had on Sicilia. On the book, we learn about the duel of the writer and the subsequent foundation of the Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad, a civil movement against the so-called war against narc by the Mexican Government between 2006 and 2012. Therefore, social fact and intimate memory merge in this book. Thus, this research’s hypothesis is that it is possible to recognize rhetorical and technical elements used in order to build a testimony of the ineffable. How does Sicilia match lyrical technique and testimony to form a balanced point between the affection, the art and the memory? Which are the aesthetic implications of this rare writing? Since the author asserts himself as a witness-memorialist who reviews a high point of Mexican history, the history becomes then a first-hand testimony-memory of the historical period. Likewise, the historical conscience, but particularly the literary awareness and the suspicion of the written language to describe and express his pain, allow us to problematize the relations between writing and violence on one hand, and between art and present time on the other. Such were the main targets on this study.