Virginia Newhall Rademacher, Derivative Lives. Biofiction, Uncertainty, and Speculative Risk in Contemporary Spanish Narrative

With a very original title, which is indebted to economics studies as explained at the time, Virginia Rademacher groups together eleven titles of Spanish novels published in the 21st century which have in common their belonging to the category of ‘biofiction’. The book uses a methodology that is also original, as the subtitle states, in which three very different concepts, belonging to equally distant worlds, are employed. These three concepts are biofiction, the essential one, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘speculative risk’. The combination of them creates an interdisciplinary approach to a universe that is in principle literary but that extends its roots and consequences far beyond, to game theory and economic analysis. Undoubtedly, such a thoughtful title sums up very well what the reader will find in its 200+ pages.