Estamos, pero no somos. Julia Wong Kcomt's counter-ontological approach to transpacific heritage

Estamos, pero no somos is the title of Julia Wong Kcomt's seminal and thought-provoking essay on transpacific heritage and the geopolitics of the post-imperial age. A prolific poet and novelist, Wong (1965-2024) is one of the most important Tusán figures that shaped the contemporary debate on Tusán literature. Tusán is a phonetic adaptation into Peruvian Castilian Spanish of 土生 (in the 粤 pronunciation) and a historical term that is currently experiencing a process of resignification in Peru. As a category of self-identification, the adjective brings transpacific heritage and imperialism to the forefront in the current discourse on what it means to be Peruvian. Wong's essay lays out the landscape of this discussion and offers a complex understanding of classification, identification, and language. This guest lecture will approach the essay from philological standpoint and explore the role of polyglotism in Wong's essay.

Puo-an Francisca Wu Fu is a philologist, lecturer, and post-doctoral academic staff member of Latein-Amerika Institut (LAI), Freie Universität Berlin. She has been a translator and interpreter for over a decade. Her monograph La escritura transpacífica. Poéticas vectoriales para entender el mundo (De Gruyter) will be published this year.