A biblioteca infinita de Juan Villoro

Abstract

The Wild Book(2008), by the Mexican writer Juan Villoro (1956), is a young adult narrative that establishes intertextuality with the work of several authors, such as Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Herman Melville (1819-1891), Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) and, in particular, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Among the countless references that can be evoked, an important interpretative clef of this narrative is the dialogue it establishes with Borges' “The Library of Babel”. In both texts there is a first-person narrator that looks for an elusive book in a labyrinthine library and both works reflect, in their own distinct way, on literature, reading and the reader. This paper seeks to examine the way The Wild Bookdeals with critical questions relating to the future of literature, giving special attention to the intertextual relations between Villoro’s and Borges’ work.