CASTAWAYS AND JESTERS IN ALFONSO ALCALDE’S URBAN CHRONICLES

Abstract

Th e multifaceted Chilean writer Alfonso Alcalde produced a colossal and heterogenous body of work, most of which unfortunately has been relegated to the margins of the country’s literary history. Th e profession of journalism, which especially contributed to Alcalde’s narrative, is a fi eld even more neglected. Within the context of a project dedicated to the recovery and study of Alcalde’s “referential” writing, this article seeks to interpret a selection of those texts understood as “literary journalism”, with a focus on the way in which they develop characters. Th ese characters constitute a genuine bridge between the diverse genres within Alcalde’s complex corpus, and can be read as an inter-discursive strategy that allows for the fusion of journalistic and artistic points of view found in the contemporary urban chronicle.