Literature, ruins, and memory in Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

Abstract

This essay proposes an analysis of the novel Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli,
which focuses on the issue of the migrant children detained on the border between the United States and Mexico.
Our interpretative hypothesis is that the novel thematizes the difficulties of narrating the complexity of a radical otherness
from the restricted point of view of the narrator, a Mexican journalist travelling with her family near the border.
Furthermore, we argue that the novel criticizes the idea of ​​social inclusion through the multiplication of cultural discourses.
For this purpose, we will employ theoretical reflections by Walter Benjamin and Fredric Jameson, among others.