Uprootedness Both Here and There in Alejandra Banca’s ‘From Savagery’

Alejandra Banca’s defiant short stories about young Venezuelans’ experiences as struggling migrants in Barcelona and back home in a broken Caracas, (titled ‘Desde la salvajada’ in Spanish) has been translated into English by Katie Brown and published by Selkies House. These stories are visceral, heartfelt and devastatingly human, as the only thing keeping these characters afloat is the nostalgia for what once was and the bonds they form as they navigate abandonment.

Without a doubt, uprooting, exile, and the feeling of being a foreigner are common themes explored by many Latin American authors. Economic crises, coups and various social and political conflicts have led a significant number of artists to settle in Europe and the United States. Over the years, the voices of Latin American emigration and exile have adopted different tones and nuances, ranging from idealisation to nostalgia and anger. Banca’s stories, in this sense, fit within a tradition that highlights and problematises the ever-changing and chaotic politics of Latin America.

As the title of the anthology suggests, From Savagery is a raw and unidealised account of Venezuelan immigration to Spain. Through various stories, such as “BUM-BA-DA-DÁH-DA DA-DA-DÁH-DA” and “Lasme”, the collection narrates the survival journey of a group of young people who have left Venezuela in hopes of finding a safe place far from the social and political violence and the dire living conditions they endured in their homeland. However, Spain does not welcome them with open arms but instead greets them with precarious work, racism, and more violence. As a result, the characters find themselves trapped in a spiral of alienation and disappointment, with no immediate escape other than the sense of community they build together. At times it feels they exist merely to survive, resisting because returning to Venezuela is not an option either. Life fights against them but these young characters retain some hope about the future.

A second group of stories in this collection is set in Venezuela. “Dirt Poor” and “Damp” depict the personal tragedies of the post-Chavista era, where poverty, scarcity and resignation dominate the lives of the characters. In these stories, the characters have normalised living alongside extreme violence and death, and Banca narrates their experiences without distance or anaesthesia but with a constant disregard for life that reflects the extreme situation Venezuela is going through.

Thus, uprootedness occurs both here and there —in the lost homeland and in the promised paradise—and the only thing keeping these characters afloat is the nostalgia for what once was and the bonds they form as they navigate abandonment. Sometimes these bonds are superficial, other times self-serving, but they underscore the desperate need to connect with others as an antidote to loneliness. Banca’s stories make readers uncomfortable: there are no happy endings, no rewards for the good, no self-improvement stories. However, they paint with overwhelming fidelity the harsh reality of Venezuelans who feel foreign on both sides of the ocean.

Get a copy of From Savagery in the UK from Selkies House or in the USA from Restless Books.

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