Neoextractivism, or the birth of magical realism as world literature. Issue 3 (4th March 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Terian, Andrei
• Is Part Of: Textual practice. Volume 35:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 485
• Page End: 503
• Publication Date: 2021-03-04
• Subjects: Neoextractivism -- Romanian fiction -- Mihail Sadoveanu -- Cezar Petrescu -- magical realism -- world literature; Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism -- Periodicals; Criticism, Textual -- Periodicals; Semiotics -- Periodicals; 801.95
• DOI: 10.1080/0950236X.2021.1886710
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0950-236X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In recent years, literary criticism has shown increased interest towards the manner in which fiction depicts (neo)extractivism as a set of practices whereby large quantities of natural resources are exploited for export. However, scholars have overlooked the manifestation of this phenomenon in areas and epochs other than post-1945 Latin America. Based on a close reading of two Romanian interwar novels – Cezar Petrescu's Pământ și cer and Mihail Sadoveanu's Nopțile de Sânziene – this article aims to demonstrate that extractive fictions played a decisive role in the emergence of magical realism as a narrative mode whereby the peripheries have left a distinctive mark on the configuration of world literature. My argument follows three consecutive steps: first, I explore how the two novels represent neoextractivism as a mechanism for the destruction of the biocoenosis and the othering of natives; then, I show that the magical, mythical, and supernatural distinguish themselves in the two works as the only instruments able to stop capitalist commodification; lastly, I show that the particular mode of representation the two novels deploy (which I label 'proto-magical realism') turns them into the missing link, on a transnational scale, between interwar social and regional fictions and early postwar magical realist works.