Alarcón’s Notion of Universalization in Lost City Radio

Abstract

Abstract In his debut novel, Lost City Radio (2007), Daniel Alarcón combines his passions for narrative, journalism, radio, and the city of Lima into a story arch that at once teaches and transcends modern Peruvian history. The novelist has used the word “universalization” in defining the theoretical underpinning of his novel, a theory he enacts in subsequent creative endeavors, which include the founding and production of two narrative journalistic podcasts that speak to and about a broad “regional” community that identifies with “América Latina” as a transnational, transcultural, translingual community. This essay explores Alarcón’s articulation and deployment of the concept of universalization as a transbordering strategy in Lost City Radio, and examines the enactment of transbordering as a guiding ethos in his multifaceted scholarly production to date.