From invisible cities to impossible cities: Mexican urban microfiction

Abstract

Urban microfiction, in Mexico, is a genre that has oscillated between the directo referentiality of urban spaces and the metaphorization of imagined cities (a legacy of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities). It. seeks to investigate which elements are characteristic of those micofiction. This article proposes a comparison with other forms of urban literatura: it alludes to a traditional bestiary, intertextuality with literatura that discusses the origins, history, or fictionalization of the city; thematization of the apocalypse, It analizes the play with temporalities and the boundaries between the city and tre non-city; the construction of urban identityand iconic spaces, such as the city's Metro. The proposed features are the result of the analysis of texts published fron the early 20th century to the present.