Between Thresholds: Chronotope, Topopoetics, and the Experience of Mystery in the Microfiction of Ana María Shua and Ángel Olgoso

Abstract

The article examines the construction of mystery in the microfiction of Ana María Shua and Ángel Olgoso as a liminal experience generated by a spatiotemporal reconfiguration. The methodological frame links Bakhtin’s chronotope—especially the threshold chronotope—with a topopoetic reading of the experience of place. In this way, it shows how brevity, ellipsis, and the microrrelato’s informational gaps intensify perceptual instability and the passage between a “this side” (Más Acá) and a “beyond” (Más Allá). In La sueñera, the threshold is interior and atmospheric: the oneiric (wakefulness/dream) and its silences sustain the effect of estrangement. In Cuentos de otro mundo, the threshold is externalized: spatial irruptions, extraordinary objects, and scientifically inflected unknowns open paranormal cosmologies and dispossess the subject. The comparison proposes mystery as affective literary knowledge and suggests topopoetics as a fruitful tool for Hispanic criticism.