El arte de bregar en dos novelas puertorriqueñas contemporáneas: Sirena Selena vestida de pena y Sol de medianoche.

Abstract

This article analyzes two recent novels of Puerto Rican writers: Sol de medianoche (1999) by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá and Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) by Mayra Santos-Febres. Although these novels clearly show thematical differences, the author here argues that they converge in the way the main characters are described. Indeed, the activity of the main characters, a cross-dresser and an insane detective, consists exclusively in what Díaz Quiñones (2000) has called "el arte de bregar", a way-and also an art- of surviving by establishing an ambiguous relationship with the other. The art of "bregar" implies a doubling of one‘s personality which can take various forms: Santos-Febres‘ novel deals with the play of sexual differentiation (cross-dressing as a construction of a conflictive identity) while Juliá‘s novel takes a pathological turn, visible in the schizophrenia of the main character. Moreover, from the point of view of "lite colonialism" which characterizes Puerto Rico‘s postmodernity, this "art" can be interpreted as a specific form of colonial mimicry.