Fantasía oscura argentina: de los rasgos distintivos a la estructuración de un campo narrativo emergente

This working paper advances a structured analytical approach to Argentine dark fantasy as an emerging narrative field. Building upon an initial descriptive framework, the study moves toward a more explicit methodological articulation of the sub-genre, identifying recurrent symbolic, ethical, and narrative patterns across contemporary Argentine and Latin American works.

Drawing on a corpus that includes authors such as Mariana Enríquez, Samanta Schweblin, Pedro Mairal, and Francisco Bitar, the paper proposes five core traits that distinguish Argentine dark fantasy from its Anglo-European counterparts: the internalization of faith as a wound, the centrality of moral decision over external threat, the ambiguity of redemption, the persistent symbolic anchoring in historical violence, and the predominance of introspection over epic structure.

The study also situates the sub-genre within a broader cultural ecosystem that includes independent publishing, transmedia narratives, role-playing games, and digital microfiction, highlighting the distributed and participatory nature of its contemporary consolidation.

This working paper extends a previous descriptive study on Argentine dark fantasy (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18319531) by advancing a more structured methodological articulation of the field and incorporating safeguards to address the potential circularity inherent in analyzing a corpus in which the author is also an active participant. It is intended as an open contribution to ongoing discussion and future research on speculative fiction and literary classification in the Southern Cone.