Imaginaries of Capitalist Destruction in Tikal Futura. Memorias para un futuro incierto (novelita futurista), by Franz Galich

Abstract

This article analyzes the novel Tikal Futura. Memorias para un futuro incierto (novelita futurista) (2011), by the Guatemalan author Franz Galich (1951-2007). From an interdisciplinary approach and a Marxist critique of political economy, using Marx´s concept of “metabolic rift,” I argue that Galich's dystopia can be read as a symbolic and critical response to capitalist rationality that conceives of nature as an unlimited source of exchange values. The novel questions neoliberal rationality in which human and non-human nature are seen from the logic of costs and benefits mediating our relationship with the world through the commodity form. Finally, I argue that the novel allows us to read the current environmental crisis through the concept of Capitalocene.