Delito y huellas de la dictadura chilena en el espacio urbano de Santiago: Una investigacion de la caracterizacion y las funciones del medio ambiente en las novelas neopoliciales de Ramon Diaz Eterovic

Abstract

The academic interest of this study is to determine the functions and uses of space in the detective novels of the Chilean author Ramon Diaz Eterovic. Diaz Eterovic's novels belong to the category of contemporary detective fiction in Latin America called novela negra or neopolicial, a literary form that borrows conventions from its predecessors but that modifies them according to the needs of the social context in which they are written. Little study has been done on the use of space in this type of narrative in spite of the fact that contrary to common practice among writers of classical detective fiction, authors of contemporary detective novels in Latin America privilege the development of space over other components of the text. In the detective novels of Diaz Eterovic space functions as an index of abstract categories of meaning. I apply principally structuralist theories and theories on space and the role of memory, as well as some urban theory, to look at the mechanisms used by the narrator to convey an ideological message through the representation of his physical and social surroundings. Space functions critically, pointing to the period of the Pinochet military dictatorship (1973-1989) as the cause of social, economic, and environmental problems that plague the country both during the military regime and well into the post-dictatorial years. I also look at how the representation of space evolves as the series progresses and the content of the novels moves away from the referent of the dictatorship which informs them. Diaz Eterovic modifies the function of the detective novel to encompass not only a critical agenda but also as a means of preserving the collective memory of the recent past which is quickly being forgotten.