Les imbéciles de Jerome Avenue

Abstract

This article explores the specific role of heterotopia in a literary context as a place located in-between reality and fiction, specifically in the light of the autofictional play at work in Charyn’s writing. As both a spatial landmark and imaginary background of a reinvented world, the Bronx intersects both fact and creation. This subjective cartography brings Charyn to reposition different possible first persons along a complex spectrum. Like Jerome Avenue, which cuts Charyn’s former borough in half, the line separating history and story is not wholly uncrossable, but rather a threshold to an affective mode of speech based on idiosyncrasy.