Sudden death,  the power to narrate pictorial works

The novel Sudden death /Muerte súbita written by Álvaro Enrigue is analysed in this study, using the theoretical contributions of Werner Wolf and Irina Rajewsky, the typology of intermediality, and the model of modalities and modes of media elaborated by Lars Elleström. The aim of this study lies, first on the blending of different media within the novel, the question of pictorial narrative, and argues that images narratives can generate the diegesis in Álvaro Enrigue's book. Second, to analyze how the mentioned intermedial relations to the paintings can create a meaning in the novel. The novel by Enrigue relates some paintings of the Italian painter Caravaggio such as The calling of St. Matthew, Marta and Magdalena, Judith beheading Holofernes and Basket of fruits that have become important in creating the understandings the History of Mexico and the History of Spain. This intermedial study of the work of Enrigue "Sudden death" has shown that words have the power to represent images as well as give us the possibility of expanding the visuality of the media that are present in a literary text