The figure of the "great author" or Carlos fuentes became genetic monstrosity in César Aira el congreso de literatura (1997).

Abstract

Based on César Aira’s The Congress of Literature (1997), this article aims to reflect on the literary notion of “figure of the author”. In this short novel, César, a minor writer invited to a congress of literature in Venezuela, wants to clone the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who in the novel represents the image of the author "consecrated", the author "endowed with Genius". Our purpose is therefore to observe, from the reflections of Aira,  some of the hypothesis about the author posed by the critique sin ce the middle of the twentieth century as The notion of author's name, the function - author (Foucault), as well as the link between author, author's name and literary history.