LITERAL 11

In this issue:

Fiction

Poetry

Reviews

Film

LITERAL 11
The anatomy of tedium
/ Anatomia del tedio

This issue of Literal is dedicated to the ghosts of tedium, Esther as an unexpected anticlimax to the hopes and fears of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Yvon Grenier “Tedio democrático”) or seen form the perspective of those who perceive it as a metaphor of its own names and nothingness (Jesús Silva Herzog-Márquez: “Philosophizing Ennui”). Lars Svendsen, a Norwegian intellectual who recently published Philosophy of Boredom offers a reflection written exclusively for his issue (“Boredom and Drugs”) where he defines our artificial paradises as “substitutes for meaning.” The volume is complemented with a text by José Woldenberg on the social polarization as the primary obstacle to Mexico’s democratic consolidation. We also offer a text by Adolfo Castañón, written to commemorate the honorary doctorate granted by the Universidad de los Andes to Eugenio Montejo along with the speech he read at the VIIth Biennal of Literature Mariano Picón Salas, in Mérida, Venezuela, last September.