Fiction as Deception: Anthropology, Journalism, and Narrative Traps in Bernardo Carvalho's Nove noites

Ribeiro, Marília

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2014), 91, (3), 307–316.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2014.20
Language: English
Pages: 10

Abstract

The relationship between Bernardo Carvalho's fiction and the reader may be characterized by deception: the use of non-literary discourses and references play, in his novels, a central role in the puzzle that is presented to the reader. In this article I explore the ways in which the novel Nove Noites (2002) uses anthropological and journalistic discourses as narrative devices to underscore the artificiality of fiction, rather than its ability to represent reality. I argue that Bernardo Carvalho uses the questions raised by anthropology and journalism about ‘authenticity’ and ‘experience’ to reverse the reader's expectations about representing identities and cultures. The novel ultimately does so by appropriating the language of ethnography and mimicking the methods of journalistic investigation, creating deceptive links with real facts that foreground the multifaceted relationship between fiction and reality.

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