Meditations on the Border in Heriberto Yépez' The Empire of Neomemory

Abstract

Heriberto Yépez (Tijuana, 1974) is one of the most critical voices in Mexican literature of the 21st century. An important part of his literary work focuses on the border between Mexico and United States subject. However, in El imperio de la neomemoria (2007) Yépez problematizes the meaning of that border space through discursive, identity and symbolic features. Such essay, in a biographical style ‒via Charles Olson character, who is at the same time Herman Melville’s biographer‒ analyzes the ways in which Occident imposes some perception processes and mnemonics constructions to remake culture and border notions. By way of comparison and contrast with other literary manifestations and performances around northern and southern Mexican borders, this article aims to propose some reflections as: In which ways can the border be really delimited? Is it possible to think separately northern and southern Mexican borders? What does it mean to become a "border being"? Thus, as Michel Butor did in À la frontière (1996) with his typology according to causes and consequences, this work seeks to give some answers to the conceptual and cultural plasticity of the term border.