Article Title / Título del artículo

On the Road to Nowhere: A Reading of Franz Galich’s Managua, Salsa City (¡Devórame otra vez!)

Authors

Kerri A. Muñoz, Auburn UniversityFollow

Abstract / Resumen

On the Road to Nowhere:

A Reading of Franz Galich’s Managua, Salsa City (¡Devórame otra vez!)

This article examines how Franz Galich, in Managua, Salsa City (¡Devórame otra vez!), narrates the Central American neoliberal experience from the perspective of the underprivileged. I explore how, beginning with the title, the author positions his protagonists in the neoliberal, fragmented moment. From there, Galich proceeds to document a night in the life of the marginalized. Here, Beatriz Cortez’s concept of cinismo is used to understand how the role-playing, that is central to the novel, brings into question arbitrary social barriers. In so doing, the role-playing affords the protagonists momentary delusions of being able to achieve something other than what they know, therein giving them the agency they need to survive another day. This cynicism, though, is an object of derision because it is shown to be an inadequate tool of social change since, as the author concludes at the end of his novel, it is ultimately futile because it serves only to perpetuate the current system. Instead, something not yet imagined is needed.

Recommended Citation

Muñoz, Kerri A. (2017) "On the Road to Nowhere: A Reading of Franz Galich’s Managua, Salsa City (¡Devórame otra vez!)," Dissidences: Vol. 7: Iss. 12, Article 7.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/dissidences/vol7/iss12/7