Jorge Baron Biza's Vitriolic Novel on Argentine Disillusionment

Jorge Baron Biza's novel "Le désert et la semence" (The Desert and the Seed) is a complex work that transcends a family revenge narrative. Set in 1960s Argentina, the author's father commits suicide after throwing vitriol in his wife's face. For over two years, Jorge accompanies his faceless mother from clinic to clinic between Buenos Aires and Milan. At night, wandering Milan's alleys, he meets Dina, who appears indivisible, contrasting with his mother's fragmented state. The book is an oppositional play, but fundamentally a novel about corruption—of flesh, feelings, ideological and political action—disillusionment, and the difficult reconstruction of post-Perón Argentina. Written in Spanish, it incorporates cocoliche (a hybrid of Italian and Spanish) and fake newspaper articles that distance the autobiographical narrative, reflecting cultural grafts imposed by Perón's policies. The title alludes to V.I.T.R.I.O.L., the Latin acronym for "Descend into the bowels of the earth and, by distilling, you will find the foundation stone." Alexandre Mare provides commentary.