Women, Memory and Dictatorship in Recent Chilean Fiction: Palabra de Mujer

(Hardback)

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Description

An analysis of Chilean memory culture from the perspective of gender and literary studies.

How do the politics of memory perpetuate gendered images of political violence in Chile Can the literary rewriting of painful experiences contest existing interpretations of national trauma How do women participate in the production of collective narratives of the past in the aftermath of violence This book discusses the literary representation of women and their memory practices in the recent work of seven contemporary Chilean authors: Diamela Eltit, Carlos Franz, Pa Gonzlez, Ftima Sime, Arturo Fontaine, Pa Barros, and Nona Fernndez. It locates their works in the context of a patriarchal politics of memory in Chile, a country still grappling with the legacy of military dictatorship. Through the analysis of novels that depict the dictatorial past through the memories of women, Gustavo Carvajal argues that these texts explore remembrance as a process by which the patriarchal co-option of womens memories can be exposed and even contested in the aftermath of violence.

Reviews

A powerful exploration of the gendered dimensions of subjugation and the many ways such violence has been rendered visible through literature. By bringing together post-dictatorial Chilean fiction, feminist theory and historical analysis, Carvajal prompts us to think in new ways about patriarchal control, militaristic culture, and how writing can become a tool of dissent.
-Lisa Renee DiGiovanni, Keene State College, New Hampshire--Lisa Renee DiGiovanni "Keene State College, New Hampshire"
Drawing on an impressive selection of texts that offer insight into the gendered nature of memory politics in post-dictatorship Chile, Palabra de Mujer explores and challenges the boundaries between dictatorship and post-dictatorship, fact and fiction, perpetrator and victim, offering a nuanced portrayal of the ways in which literary voices engage with the past.
-Cara Levey, University College Cork, Ireland--Cara Levey "University College Cork, Ireland"

Author Bio

Gustavo Carvajal is Lecturer in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at the Universidad Finis Terrae (Chile).