Juan Villoro’s 8.8 or the chronicle of a chaotic instant

Abstract

In his book 8.8 El miedo en el espejo (2010) the Mexican writter Juan Villoro (1956) chronicles the 8.8 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale that occurred on February 27th, 2010 in Chile. This text is the result of the cataclysm and, as such, it constitutes a chaotic concert of testimonies and reflections that remind of other chronicles and historical or literary earthquakes. From a hotel in Santiago the author explores from a distance the fragility of man facing nature and himself. Villoro’s chronicle incorporates the philosophical, political and literary comment in a fictional narrative from unusual perspectives. In this paper we will consider how the boundary between literary genres appears so weak that it is necessary to cross it, to put different genres in contact and thus create new forms of expression. In this way, Villoro appears to be an author, narrator, character, reporter, essayist and witness, through a multiplicity of perspectives that could make the book a novel or an essay; yet Villoro insists: it is a chronicle.