The Square that contains all Squares. Three Omens from Lumpérica

Abstract

This essay proposes a reflection on the anticipatory condition of Diamela Eltit’s poetics, starting from her first novel, Lumpérica. Eltit’s magnum opus constitutes a textual portrait of the bombed La Moneda and the violence and annihilation that followed the 1973 coup. The rubble of La Moneda is concentrated in the multiplication of fragments in Lumpérica and in the shattered body of L. Iluminada. The essay also connects various events –from the illumination of Plaza de Armas in 1883 to the march of women in black on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup– to suggest that the plaza inscribed in Eltit’s novel contains all the squares in chilean history and the possibility of a more just future.