Abstract
This study highlights a heretofore-unexplored narrative device in Bernardo Atxaga’s fiction by highlighting how the author’s representation of spaces surrounding Reno and the Great Basin in Días de Nevada models what Berberich et al. (2016) call affective landscapes. The approach contributes to, and looks beyond, the traditional focus on memory in criticism of Atxaga, and it illustrates the story’s engagement with the emotional experiences of populations in the North American West that are not explored or rarely treated in the author’s other works. Finally, this paper contributes a new conceptual model to studies like Elena Delgado et al. (2016) that have used affect and the emotions as categories of historical analysis in the study of national and transnational relations between Europe and the Americas.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18122/boga.9.1.3.boisestate
Recommended Citation
Pleiss, Mark
(2022)
"Places Beyond Memory: The Affective Landscapes of Bernardo Atxaga's Días de Nevada,"
BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal: Vol. 9
:
Iss.
1
, Article 3.
https://doi.org/10.18122/boga.9.1.3.boisestate
Available at:
https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/boga/vol9/iss1/3
Included in
Basque Studies Commons, Other Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons, Spanish Literature Commons
About the Author
Mark Pleiss is the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Simpson College (Indianola, IA). Pleiss was formerly a Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish at The University of Denver and St. Olaf College. He is interested in anti-mimetic forms of representation in the fiction of contemporary Spanish writers and also publishes in educational development. His work has been published in Anales de la literatura española contemporánea, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Calandria, and To Improve the Academy. His 2019 collection of short stories, April Warnings (Veliz Books), was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Mark lives in Des Moines, IA.
Education