Memory and the Flows of Identity in Hatoum’s Amazon

Geopolitical national borders have long created homogenous, stereotypical, and fixed identities in order to serve a nation-building myth. In this paper I analyze the (de) construction of fixed notions of identity, region and nation through the use of memory in the short stories “Um oriental na vastidão” [An Eastern Man in the Vastitude] and “A Casa Ilhada” [The Island House] of the book A Cidade Ilhada [The Island City] by Milton Hatoum. In these short stories the homodiegetic narrators present characters from various parts of the world (Japan, England, and Switzerland). Milton Hatoum, an immigrant descendent, intertwines fiction and childhood memories. He undoes the homogeneity of identity traditional of the regionalist writing of the Amazons by touching upon the theme of immigration in his native city of Manaus and the integration of this new community into Brazilian society. This analysis will work with the premises of Albuquerque Jr.’s theory in the book A invenção do Nordeste [The invention of the Brazilian Northeast]: the region is an “invention”. In “Um Oriental na Vastidão” and “A Casa Ilhada”, these inventions consist of memories that bring different regions and subjects together and engender ‘world nets’ that promote “cultural global flows” (Appadurai). I argue that Hatoum’s narratives challenge not only the normative discourse of mestiçagem (mixing) in the foundational discussion about Latin American identity (Lund, Joshua) but also imply a simultaneously local and global construction of this identity. These stories provide new insights into the notions of the national body and the national subject not only by setting their narratives in the naturally transnational region of the Amazon jungle but also by depicting the complex cultural and social networks of the Amazon as memory (de)constructions