What Affects the Body Occupies the Text (and vice versa):

An Analysis of A Ocupação by Julián Fuks

Abstract

This article analyses Julián Fuks’ novel A Ocupação, exploring the intersection between body, narrative, and political space. The novel is structured around the experience of the narrator, Sebastián, a writer who follows the occupation of the Hotel Cambridge in São Paulo by homeless groups and refugees. Throughout the narrative, Sebastián’s voice is gradually occupied by the stories of the building’s residents, creating an overlap between the materiality of urban occupation and the occupation of the text itself. In this way, Fuks constructs a novel in which the displaced and vulnerable bodies of the characters resonate in the textual composition. This analysis considers writing as a space of resistance and testimony, discussing how the novel challenges the boundaries between literature and reality. Because of this, this study examines how A Ocupação expands the limits of fiction by allowing other voices to inscribe themselves within its structure, turning writing into an act of hospitality and displacement.