Conlon, David
(2018)
‘Discourse with the Incorporeal Air’:
Spectres of Walsh in Plata quemada.
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies.
pp. 657-671.
ISSN 1475-3839
Abstract
This article suggests that Ricardo Piglia’s non-fiction crime novel Plata quemada
(1997) be read as a conscious homage to Rodolfo Walsh’s earlier non-fiction novel
¿Quién mató a Rosendo? (1969). The suggested reading takes as its point of departure
the appearance in Piglia’s text of an oblique reference to the ‘play-within-theplay’
of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which also contains echoes of a detail from ¿Quién
mató a Rosendo?. Following on from this, the article’s argument is threefold: 1) that
¿Quién mató a Rosendo? and Plata quemada are both concerned with a dramatization
of economic paradigms, which amounts to an unveiling of the hidden violence of
capitalism; 2) that Plata quemada reflects the evolution of the nature of capitalism,
labour, and society in the period between 1969 and 1997; 3) that in its engagement
with Walsh’s text via Hamlet, Plata quemada constitutes an act of mourning for
Walsh, who was killed by the 1976–1983 military regime, but also in respect of the
decline of the traditional left more generally.
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