Sánchez-Verdú: Aura

This is a piece about reality and fiction, about the strength of the imagination and the power of the past, and about love… Mexican author Carlos Fuentes wrote his short story Aura in Paris in 1961. It belongs to the traditions of magic realism and Latin American ghost stories, even if it actually goes far beyond these. In an essay which is almost as long as the actual story, Fuentes not only explained the autobiographical impetus for the tale, but also described the culture-historical and motivic framework within which this story lives. It ranges from ancient Chinese literature to a Japanese story from the 17th century and on to Luis Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel, Alexandre Dumas’ Lady of the Camellias and Verdi’s La Traviata. For Fuentes, Aura is above all a story of eroticism and necrophilia, taking up the time-honoured tradition of stories about eternal fidelity and couples who are reunited in death. (Rainer Pöllmann)