The impossible return of the exiled. Ulysses in Alberto Manguel’s work

Abstract

This article examines the presence of Ulysses in Alberto Manguel’s literary and academic work, mainly in El regreso (2007) and El regreso de Ulises (2014), published in collaboration with cartoonist Max. In these works, Manguel addresses the universal problem of the exiled and of their impossible return to the place of departure through the figure of Ulysses. Throughout his academic wanderings, Ulysses is reshaped according to different settings and through other characters, such as the Sybil, in a sequence of literary retellings spanning from Homer to T. S. Eliot and including Virgil, Petronius and especially Dante.