Vegetal Matrices in Leonor Courtoisie’s Irse yendo

Abstract

This paper takes a post-anthropocentric approach to the first novel published by Uruguayan playwright Leonor Courtoisie, paying attention to the role that narrative form plays in shaping our imagination of the world in the 21st century. Irse yendo is crisscrossed by a rich intertextual field around the figure of the tree and other vegetal forms of life. This network of associations invites a biocentric reading of the novel since it is not only figurative, but has roots and branches that extend from fiction to the personal and artistic life of the writer. Situating the text within a specifically female lineage of literary affiliation, an emphasis on the vegetal textuality of the novel reveals that parallel to the plot about the intimate life of a family there is an implicit criticism of dominant models, as well as the suggestion that it might be possible to imagine other ways of inhabiting the world.