El invierno en Lisboa: Semiosis of a tourist place in Muñoz Molina’s novel and Zorrilla’s film

Abstract

The possibility of incorporating the visit of fictional or non-existent places into the universe of Literary Tourism (Butler, 2022: 79) finds a fruitful field of enquiry in the novel El invierno en Lisboa, by Antonio Muñoz Molina (1987), and in the film of the same name by José Antonio Zorrilla (1991). This article first analyses the way in which Molina’s work gives the representation of space, especially the city of Lisbon, a peculiar treatment, marked simultaneously by the promotion of its actantial importance and the denial of its toponymic identity. In this analysis, it examines the editorial responses to this idiosyncratic trait, namely through the covers of some international editions of Molina’s novel. It then reflects on the spatial representation strategies applied by José Antonio Zorrilla in the film inspired by Molina’s novel and shot in the cities of San Sebastián, Madrid and Lisbon, using the data gathered to discuss the hermeneutic value of the possibility and impossibility of recognising the places in the Portuguese capital where the protagonist lives.

Finally, it questions the possibility of a tourist experience emulating the hermeneutic effect resulting from the spatial representation options used in El invierno en Lisboa, both in its novel and film form.