Cultural Politics of the Emotions Portrayed in Sara Mesa’s Short Fiction

This article proposes a close reading of Sara Mesa’s short fiction, Mala letra (2016), through the lens of affect theory. It follows the underpinnings that form the core of The Cultural Politics of Emotion by Sara Ahmed (2004), where she dedicates one chapter to each emotion. The analysis in this article focuses on Ahmed’s discussion of pain, hate, fear, and disgust in order to frame Mesa’s fiction, which will allow us to shed light on the intricacies of Mesa’s depictions of these emotions in five selected short stories. Through this theoretical framework and a close textual analysis, this article will examine the revelatory nature of emotions, as well as the social and political structures that contain them.