Abstract

This chapter presents a reading of A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (1977) by the Yugoslavian writer Danilo Kiš and Don DeLillo's Libra. A Tomb for Boris Davidovich explores the way networks of power and domination operate in the Communist international movement under Stalin. Libra constitutes an exemplary literary study of the political Cold War. The novel is not simply a poetic model for an ideology critique of American contemporary politics and culture; it is primarily a literary discourse that, through a speculative fiction about the Kennedy assassination and a fictional biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, enacts a political parable about institutional secrecy and its exceptional legal status as the core of democratic sovereignty in the age of the global picture. Libra enters an indirect dialogue with A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by showcasing the literary text's relation to the historical archive: DeLillo explores Oswald's documented relation to Soviet ideology as well as his real or fictional involvement with US-based intelligence operatives and their global power networks.

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