En-deçà du récit, au-delà du livre : le dispositif spatial dans les textes de Alejo Carpentier et Julio Cortázar

Abstract

This contribution aims at exploring the possibilities of a transdisciplinary collaboration by analyzing the scope of a work on space in some literary texts thanks to the use of tools developed in architectural research. In this article, I explore Alejo Carpentier and Julio Cortazar’s works to reveal similar processes: as they revisit – explicitly or implicitly – the Purist movement of the 1920s or some of Le Corbisier’s writings, they create perceptive effects thanks to specific spatial devices. This type of approach led them to explore writing as a form of otherness that is not based on the usual techniques of spatial representation, but on the arrangement of spaces that are foreign bodies, true agents of creation that can revive the text and broaden its scope beyond the book.