Valeria Luiselli on Mexico City's Impossible Map

In an essay published on Artribune, writer Valeria Luiselli reflects on the impossibility of mapping Mexico City, describing it as a 'pure nostalgia for the future.' Drawing on Borges and Mark Fisher's hauntology, she argues that residents sense urban planning was never more than a sketch, leaving them to inhabit 'the ruins of an oversized map.' The article, by Leonardo Merlini, connects this to a giant map of Venice in Palazzo Balbi that attempts to depict every building, highlighting the failure of any narrative to capture such cities. Luiselli notes that writing about Mexico City is doomed from the start, as the city resembles nothing but a stain—like the humidity mark on an altar that supposedly formed the Virgin of Guadalupe, or the footprints left by characters in Roberto Bolaño's 'The Savage Detectives.' She compares these to the marks left when a painting is removed from a wall or the shadows of bodies disintegrated by a nuclear explosion. The piece is part of Artribune Magazine #54 and promotes Luiselli's book 'Carte false' (La Nuova Frontiera, 2020).