Crossing borders: Hybridity and universalism in the work of Laura Erber

Abstract

This article examines two literary works by the writer, visual artist and educator Laura Erber, exploring the coexistence in her writing of certain trends of postmodern Brazilian literature, such as hybrid textual genres, inter-artistic dialogues, the foregrounding of a metafictional dimension, or new ways of writing the self and of the literary theme of travel. This essay therefore starts with an analysis of Bénédicte vê o mar (2011), a short, graphic, poetic romance, or rather graphic book of verse, and Esquilos de Pavlov (2013), an atypical "artist's romance". These two works are endowed with an admirable freedom of expression and a deep understanding of the challenges that contemporary literary writing faces. These facets, in turn, serve to generate a critical interrogation that intertwines two themes: being and artistic creation. This article therefore examines how the crisis of contemporary art: in literature, film and the visual arts - allows the author to establish a cultural dialogue that transcends the boundaries of the national to encompass a broader context.