THE IBERIAN THIRD SPACE IN A NOVEL BY A CATALAN EXILED IN MEXICO: LANGUAGE(S) IN PARAULES D’OPOTON EL VELL BY AVEL·LÍ ARTÍS GENER

This essay argues that the treatment of languages in the novel Paraules d’Opoton el Vell (1968) [Words by Opoton the Elder], written by the Catalan author Avel·li Artis Gener during his exile in Mexico, opens a third space between Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s deterritorialization, and Walter Mignolo’s decoloniality, in a way that engages with both these ideas as it distances itself from them. Through the use of multiple languages and registers, the questioning of names, the creation of new words, and translations, Paraules d’Opoton el Vell deterritorializes language. However, by including a multiplicity of languages, it questions Deleuze and Guattari’s focus on minor languages as forces that deterritorialize the major language. At the same time, the variety of languages introduced in the novel shows the colonial difference while proposing a pluriversality like the one Mignolo links to the decolonial option. Nevertheless, Paraules d’Opoton el Vell cannot be completely lined up with decolonial critic...