Abstract

ALZATE ALZATE, Natalia Andrea. Displaced Childhood in Francisco Leal Quevedo’s El mordisco de la medianoche. Enunciación [online]. 2022, vol.27, n.1, pp.56-66. ISSN 0122-6339.  https://doi.org/10.14483/22486798.18735.

This article proposes a reflection on the representation of displaced childhood in the children and young people’s literature of recent decades in Colombia; specifically reviewing the case of the book El mordisco de la media noche by Francisco Leal Quevedo. The objective is to study, from a hermeneutical-comprehensive research perspective, the story of the protagonist, Mile, a girl from the Colombian Guajira belonging to the wayuú community, an emblematic character of displacement, who embodies the role that children involuntarily assume in these events, forced to see everything, hear everything, and be silent. In the analysis, the girl’s subjectivity is presented in two ways: first, as a border character; secondly, as an organic continuum that is defined by her relationship with the animal world as an extension of humanity. It is concluded that the child and female character predestined to disappear – as she is indigenous, a woman, and a girl– resists through a voice that is sustained in the story to enunciate the violence and survive her uprooting.

Keywords : children’s literature; childhood; recent memory; displacement; violence; Colombia.

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