Variations on possession through loss. (An analysis of Juan Villoro's testimony through Giorgio Agamben's concept of the “Absolute Witness”).

Abstract

This article analyzes Juan Villoro’s novel El testigo (2004) through the concept of the “absolute witness” developed by Giorgio Agamben in Remnants of Auschwitz. The author argues that the notion of “possession through loss,” which structures the novel, makes it possible to understand the configuration of multiple types of witnesses and the ethical function of testimony in Villoro’s narrative. The study is based on the premise that testimony is not defined solely by direct experience, but by the discursive form that renders experience transmissible, even when an untestimoniable core remains. Through an analysis of the protagonist Julio Valdivieso and other characters, the article shows how the temporal condition of the witness—between past, present, and memory—articulates an ethics of responsibility toward history and challenges official historical narratives. The study also examines the resignification of historical and literary archives through figures such as Ramón López Velarde, whose poetry functions both as testimony of an era and as an aesthetic mediation of the past. The article concludes that El testigo offers a literary and ethical reflection on memory, democracy, and historical responsibility in contemporary Mexico.