Abstract

MEJIA GONZALEZ, Alejandro Adalberto. Confluency between body and space: the Jerusalem construction Todo aquí es polvo and Escritos a mano by Esther Seligson. Connotas. Rev. crit. teór. lit. [online]. 2023, n.26, pp.264-283.  Epub June 26, 2023. ISSN 2448-6019.  https://doi.org/10.36798/critlit.v0i26.442.

The literary work of Esther Seligson (1941-2010) is populated by different spaces, both factual and fictional. As part of her nomadic experience, the writer seeks to return to the intimacy of her past through writing and the remembrance of these spaces. This paper proposes a cross-reading of Todo aquí es polvo (2010) and Escritos a mano (2011) to reveal a space that is announced as fundamental in her work: the city of Jerusalem. By means of different discursive markers, we seek to analyze the correlation between the ambivalent space of Jerusalem and the body of the writer’s lyrical self, a communion that should be unveiled in the light of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the “flesh of the world” and Gaston Bachelard’s reflections on topophilia. Thus, it will be possible to show the way in which the space of Jerusalem and Seligson’s body (in its physical and spiritual plane) are related and assembled through literature.

Keywords : corporality; spatiality; flesh of the world; topophilia.