Beyond The Novel: Textuality in Maria Gabriela Llansol

Abstract

Portuguese writer Maria Gabriela Llansol, in an award speech given when one of her books received the prize for best novel, had to justify to the jury why her work fitted that category, since not even Llansol herself considered her book an instance of that genre. That helps us see why not only professional critics, but also common readers find it difficult to fit this "text" of hers into the conventions of literature as we know it. Hence, this article takes Llansol's speech as its premise to examine the concepts of narrativity, textuality and poetic gift, which are all central to the dynamics of her writing and to understand its inclusion in the lineage of the novel genre. The present analysis is founded on a phenomenological theoretical framework, drawing mainly from the ideas of José Gil (1992) and Maria Etelvina Santos (2009).