Abstract

We examine the novel Cien Botellas en una pared by the Cuban writer Ena Lucía Portela based on the presence of different forms of ruin in the Cuban territory, which is linked to a ruined society in its materiality and in its values, ideals, and utopias. In this way, Portela’s novel constitutes a poetic around the ruins through the coexistence of a reflexive-critical nostalgia, articulated as a prospective critical discourse, and irony as a discourse of dissidence that discredits the utopian project and allows survival daily.