Love Forms in the Imagined City of Santiago de Chile
“Santiago 100 palabras” is a prestigious contest of literary texts, of less than one hundred words, organized in the city of Santiago since 2001. Each year, winner short stories are publicly displayed in subway trains and platforms. I have analyzed a body of short stories presented to this competition between 2001 and 2012 to understand the current urban experience of love and to identify some of the ways in which people experience and conceive the emergence of love in this city. Focusing in relationship patterns between individuals within a contemporary urban experience characterized by anonymity and indifference, I firstly identify four thematic perspectives to address the emergence of love in these short stories. Secondly, analyzing their effects on its readers, I explain the specific modality through which these short stories act on the social imaginary. I conclude with some hypothesis about the forms of love in the imaginary city of Santiago.