La Childhood in a conceivable world between the utopian and the dystopian: República Luminosa (2017), by Andrés Barba

Abstract

República Luminosa (2017), by Andrés Barba (1975), tells the story of a group of children who, for about a year, invade a tropical city in which violence will prevail. These events are recounted years later by a witness who assumes the role of a chronicler in a narrative full of uncertainties. The recognition of the novel, which has received various awards, has not been reflected in a scholarly interest either by contemporary literary criticism or, more specifically, by the emergent field of critical studies on dystopias and utopias, which has grown in recent years both inside and outside Spain. This novel is a singular work because Andrés Barba, who had already written about children (and for children), offers a suggestively ambiguous gaze at childhood and at the narrative act itself; in fact, a priori antagonistic readings of the novel, moving between the dystopian and the utopian, have been proposed. After exploring the singularities of the novel and considering the critical readings that have been made, a narrative analysis of time, space, characters and style is presented in this essay, so as to help illuminate the paradoxical nature of its reading. It is argued that these elements are built on duality, an element that can help to explain both the ambiguity of the concepts present in the novel and of its sources (e.g., Plato’s works).