A Maçã Envenenada: gestos de autor, corpo e obra entre Herberto Helder e Kurt Cobain

Abstract

The present article discusses the short-novel A maçã envenenada (2013), by Brazilian writer Michel Laub, with its sights aimed at discussing phenomena related to authorship and bodyof-work which are raised by the contemporary literary text in such a way that the limits between one and another are blurred, confused or virtually obliterated. These phenomena are made relevant in the novelist’s work, since his manner of intimate writing juggles the confessional, the historiographic and the literary, between the possibilities of objectivity and subjectivity in language. Other necessary operators of discourse, such as body, gesture and death (here related to that which is literary or artistic, though not limited to it) are drawn into debate with the insertion of parallel dialogues between Laub’s novel, the writings of Portuguese poet Herberto Helder and the life and works of North American singer-songwriter Kurt Cobain. The argument is also mediated by previous discussions by authors such as Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Rosa Maria Martelo and, mainly, Giorgio Agamben.