«‘No sin ser deformada puede la realidad exhibir sus enigmas’: poética y escritura en la obra literaria de J. M. Caballero Bonald»

In this work, through the analysis of a few theoretical and literary texts by J. M. Caballero Bonald, I highlight the centrality of the concept of artistic “deformation” in his poetical conception and, at the same time, his rejection of any kind of mimetic art. This “deformation”, which, upon re-working reality, allows the artist to reveal reality’s occult face, in Caballero Bonald’s view is the true purpose of literature. Closely linked to it are painting (especially Picasso’s Cubism), the surrealist imagination and baroque aesthetics, all fundamental to his literary opus, which I analyze in this essay without losing sight of concepts such as Labyrinth, Otherness, and Hermeticism, also of great importance in casting light upon Caballero Bonald’s works.