A journey through uncharted territories? : Reassessing Canarian literature and the Novela Negra through an analysis of identity, solitude and place in Miguel Aguerralde’s Claro de Luna (2009)

The aim of this article is threefold: to call for a reassessment of Canarian literature and the novela negra, both of which have been undervalued to date, and to accord critical attention to the talented Lanzarotean author, Miguel Aguerralde. It sets out to fulfil this via the first close study of Claro de Luna, examining the ways Aguerralde employs the novela negra framework and other narrative devices to engage readers with the interconnected themes of identity, solitude and place. It demonstrates that in this complex, multi-layered novel, the narrative technique is used to subvert expectations and the choice of setting, the use of cultural allusiveness, together with the presentation of authority and gender can be related to questions concerning “a sense of place”, the “decentring” of Peninsular Spain to focus on the Canary Islands. Simultaneously, Claro de Luna transcends the specificity of its setting and the limitations of the novela negra by ambitiously tackling questions of universal relevance, exploring identity in relation to mental health and stability and interrogating the nebulous notions of fantasy and “the abnormal”. In-so-doing, Aguerralde questions the validity of objective constructs such as identity vis à vis subjective perceptions and poses questions about the islands’ future.