ABSTRACT
Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, in what has been called the twenty-first-century Latin American novel (Hoyos 2015), is often studied for its representation of “spectacular” violence. This chapter, however, proposes an ecocritical and environmental justice approach using Rob Nixon’s concept of “slow violence.” Through a literary analysis of the novel, I argue that literature allows for a deeper analysis of the systems, such as capitalism and globalization, that often fragment and obscure realities. Literature thus counteracts this tendency by materializing the stories of the poor and making visible the harms of the environment. Situated in the fictional border town of Santa Teresa, the literary representation of Ciudad Juarez, 2666 displays the tensions lived at the border with the effects of legal and illegal production as it pertains to the maquiladoras, drug trafficking, snuff movies, and the murders of hundreds of women.
