Abstract

Umami (2015) by the Mexican author Laia Jufresa deals with the themes of loss, mourning and identity through several interrelated stories. Residents of an apartment complex in Mexico City live in separate flats and experience individual traumas linked to the loss of loved ones. In their daily interactions, they recognize each other’s pain while processing their own grief and exploring creative transformations in their identities and communities. Jufresa shows the intimate and personal process of mourning as a counterpart to stories of massive violence and narco-terrorism by presenting detailed examples of “ordinary grief.” Jufresa also explores the cultural dimensions of more traditional types of mourning in Mexico. The characters in Umami recognize each other, keep each other company, and experience collective vulnerability, recreating what Barbara Fredrickson, Judith Butler, and Iona Heath attribute to the roles of mutual support in grief and the key role of positive emotion in individual and community transformation. Through these perspectives from psychology, psychotherapy, and medicine, our essay reads Umami as a literary representation of the complex relationship between the personal and the communal in the creative-affective exchanges that allow us to navigate the turbulent waters of everyday mourning.