Cartonera articulations and publications in pandemic periods: Letras de Cartón II and SARS-CoV-2 books

Abstract

Since the year 2020, the world has been experiencing a health tragedy that still leaves its marks in the social, political, economic, educational and cultural fields. Data shows, not counting underreporting, that more than 6 million people have died as a result of COVID-19 and more than 700 million cases have spread across the world, even showing the various facets of inequalities between countries. Within the cartonero universe, with an even greater use of available digital resources, many cartonera publishers managed to promote various articulations (among them, workshops, meetings, chats, collective publications, etc.), even in the face of a context in which actions and cultural productions were generally well affected. In this article, divided into three parts, I discuss some cartonera actions, within this context, based on a general presentation and selected excerpts from the following co‑edited productions: Letras de Cartón II and SARS-CoV-2, which are composed by voices of different locations and form a kind of narrative map that intertwines literature and history, allowing us to reflect on the issue of individual and collective memory, death, mourning and community ties in the context of the greatest pandemic of the 21st century.