Writing and Life: Symbiotic Bond in Un año sin amor

Abstract

This article addresses the textual materiality of Pablo Pérez's first novel, Un año sin amor (1998), and aims to examine the connection between writing and life, that herein assumes a symbiotic quality. We use the term “symbiosis”, which belongs to the scope of biology, in order to consider it within the literary field. We are referring, then, to the close and persistent relationship between art and biography, elements that mutually support and nurture each other. In this novel, Pérez explores the idea that ​​art shows its Dionysian side. For this reason, we notice that the text acknowledges a scriptural approach which annihilates modesty and shows aspects of life that, on several occasions, are ignored. Writing, thus, is a projection and statement of shown subjectivity.