Cuerpos, docilidad y deseo. La identidad colectiva en ese monstruo llamado Belfondo, de Jenn Díaz

Abstract

Published in 2011, Belfondo , the debut novel of Jenn Diaz (Barcelona, 1988), deals with the monstrosity of an imaginary town that by its operation as  a living organism, challenges nature, and imposes a centrifugal order, based in  repetition. simultaneously,  it also shows a simpler and truer life, at least as real as any living organism, so as to demonstrate that Belfondo, far from being experienced as a jail, functions as a sweet daily routine, day-to-day practice of its inhabitants. however, everything spins in perfect concentric circles toward the center that gradually destroys it. The same reiterative process is just materialized in gender and sex roles so as to naturalize docile bodies and make them obedient to the law and afraid of punishment. Jenn Diaz intention is to show the monstrosity in writing about a monster turned into something worthy of being exhibited, demonstrated (latin monstrare), because monsters can only prove their existence with irrefutable evidence of their own being.