Die Toten (2016) by Christian Kracht: textual and authorial staging

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze Christian Kracht’s latest novel, Die Toten (The Dead, 2016), from the perspective of textual and authorial staging, that is, examining the text in its linguistic configurations and intertextual relations; and the author in his mediatic presence – which he uses to stage himself in an ambiguous way and to establish relations between his authorial figure and the main character of his novel. The concepts of literary field (BOURDIEU, 1996) and that of paratext (GENETTE, 1989) offer a theoretical framework for this approach. It becomes apparent that Kracht, in Die Toten, applies different strategies to reflect about his own work.