A suburban revision of nostalgia: the case of ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

The writing of Alejandro Zambra (b. 1975) exemplifies how peripherality changes according to scale and perspective. Within global and even Latin American literature Chile can seem peripheral; within Chile and specifically Santiago, suburbs and city centre alternately seem peripheral depending on viewpoint. In the novel Ways of Going Home Zambra views the era of dictatorship from two peripheries: geographical and generational. He mediates these via a complex nostalgia, both reflective and ironised. This can be understood using the theorization of the postmodern of Svetlana Baym and Linda Hutcheon. Zambra’s treatment of Santiago suburbs such as Maipú connects the apparently apolitical home to high political events. It undermines the distinction between private and public, seeks meaning in the banal, and challenges the opposition centre versus periphery