Revisiting Literary Value and Consecration at the Turn of the Century: the Critical Reception of César Aira's Works in the 1980s and 1990s

Abstract

Scholarly attention on literary production usually presupposes the value of the works studied. This article argues that a sociological approach is vital to address the historical process behind the definition of literary value. The question resides on how a successful literary career is built, such as the one of the Argentine writer César Aira, who, in stark contrast with the recognition of being in contention for the Nobel Prize in Literature of 2019, in the 1970s received only rejections from publishers. Avoiding a retrospective narrative and the opposition between internal and external analysis of literary works, this article studies the trajectory of Aira focusing on one of the mediations between the text and the context: the critical reception. I have identified primary sources that remained unexplored, and built a periodization of the reception of the books by Aira between 1981, when his first books were published, and 2001, when I find numerous indicators of his growing consecration. Paying attention to the historical, material, and symbolic dimensions, the findings contribute to scholarship on how critics’ agreements and literary value morphs, on the process of consecration amidst the erosion of authorities, and on sociocultural events key in Latin American and Argentine history.