La política espeluznante en Distancia de rescate (2014) de Samanta Schweblin

Samanta Schweblin’s Distancia de rescate (2014) stages a dialogue between two narrators that advances with a sense of urgency unbroken by sections breaks or chapters. The affect in the text is generated by the eponymous ‘rescue distance’, a measurement Amanda uses to assess the proximity of danger, and which keeps her in a constant state of anxiety. As the story proceeds, the reader begins to feel the tension of this ‘distancia de rescate’ and to share Amanda’s presentiment that danger is near, but without learning explicitly the true source of danger. This article argues that it is precisely by withholding this secret centre of the narrative tension that the reader comes to understand something of the eerie violence suffered by the characters in the story. It is the fantastic nature of the novella that draws the reader into the affective economy of the text, revealing the impacts of the neoextractive practices of the soy industry.