Inexpressive, Fragmented or Untraceable Bodies in Ernesto Semán’s "Soy un bravo piloto de la nueva China"

This study aims to map the strategies of emancipation that some authors of the last 15 years set in motion in their works of fiction about the genocide of the Argentinean dictatorship. My intention is to delve into the aesthetic dimension of their political approaches, focusing on those creations that problematise what is thinkable, foreseeable or reasonable for the inexpressive, fragmented or untraceable bodies (Quintana, 2020) of both the disappeared and their perpetrators and relatives. I will focus here on the particular case of the novel Soy un bravo piloto de la nueva China [I am a Brave Pilot of the New China] (2011) by Ernesto Semán. The plot alternates between three settings that form a conceptual kaleidoscope in which the bodies of the characters dislocate and renegotiate temporal and spatial obviousness –resorting to elements of non-mimetic literature – to make other forms of relationship with themselves and with others possible. For this porpuse, I will focus on the representation of the bodily, affective and experiential dimension of the protagonists and on the staging of an excess that, according to Rancière, seeks to destabilise the hegemonic order of representation, proposing displacements of the collective outline by crossing different logics.