TY - JOUR AU - Malvestio, Marco PY - 2019/07/18 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Trading Butterflies: The Representation of Asian Sex Workers in Vollmann and Houellebecq JF - ENTHYMEMA JA - ENTHYMEMA VL - 0 IS - 23 SE - «We Should Never Write Without Feeling». Studi su William T. Vollmann – A cura di Giuseppe Carrara e Marco Malvestio DO - 10.13130/2037-2426/11921 UR - https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/enthymema/article/view/11921 SP - 57-72 AB - <span>The article compares the representation of Asian sex workers in William T. Vollmann’s <em>Butterfly Stories</em>(1993) and Michel Houellebecq’s <em>Platform</em>(<em>Plateforme</em>, 2001). Both the novels are set in South-East Asia, and both involve an apologetic and romanticised description of the sex trade. By comparing the two novels, I argue that both authors’ treatments of the sex industry develop a critique of Western Orientalism, and at the same time sympathy for and complicity with the colonial power dynamics that regulate the relationships between Asian countries and the West.</span><span></span> ER -