At a meal at Silvina Ocampo and Bioy CasaresOn Monday, June 6, 1960, Jorge Luis Borges commented that he had received a letter from a professor at a university in the United States who specialized in Latin American women’s literature and that she wanted to give a lecture on Silvina Ocampo and Norah Lange. Borges concluded: “That it specializes in women’s literature is not right. What does it matter that it is feminine?
I remembered this anecdote from the book Women and writing 35 Argentine authors of today, Published by the La Balandra Foundation with the support of Centro pen Argentina. It is a book that broadly answers Borges’ question.
Gwendolyn Díaz-Ridgeway, now an emeritus professor at St. Mary’s University in Texas, and also an editor and writer, has been studying and writing about Argentine women writers since the 1980s, initially for her doctoral thesis (Beatriz Guido He asked her if she was confident that she would be accepted for a thesis “on women, nothing more”).
Together with Claudia Ferradas as co-editor, they chose a wide variety of authors. When I was surprised by some omissions, they explained to me that these writers had appreciated the offer to participate in the book, but had promised themselves, with literary friends of the same generation, never to be in exclusively women’s anthologies.
What an advantage to live in a time where a similar intention is possible as a cry for equality, for revenge. Silvina Ocampo, Nationally and internationally ignored as a writer, while the big ego with whom she lived was showered with offers for publication, translations of her work, and criticism in the newspapers. The women’s books were rarely reviewed or even mentioned. Or worse, as happened to the writer Elvira Orphee with his first book two summers, a heartbreaking, cruel book, full of the hatred of a provincial boy, and yet it inspired a critic to write: “two summers It makes us live peaceful moments and landscapes in a simple and at the same time entertaining story, full of deep tenderness”. This critic, who also had too many adjectives, was able to write and publish something so opposite to what the book was because he decided there was no need to read it.
Since I mentioned Silvina Ocampo and Elvira Orphée, I once heard them talk about an editor from the Sudamericana publishing house. Elvira half jokingly said that López Llausá had managed to sell two copies of his novel air so sweet and Silvina replied: “You were lucky, with my book you managed to sell one.” Regardless of the talent of both, they did not sell. Sara Gallardo was another similar case. They did not write as women were expected to write: light, unpretentious in language, on the surface of life, in the somewhat trivial style of Silvina Bullrich. They celebrated the sentimental (like that book that could not be read with mascara) and that was what sold.
In this book woman and writing Alicia Dujovne Ortiz she remembers the comments that men made to her, when writing rebounded against some kind of male censorship. As Díaz-Ridgeway clarifies: “Currently, the work of Argentine and Latin American authors in general enjoys recognition demonstrated by the number of national and international awards they have received.”
woman and writing offers geographical diversity, writers from Entre Ríos, Chaco, Mendoza, Córdoba, Chubut, Tierra del Fuego, Santa Fe, Misiones, Buenos Aires. In addition, there are other languages in our vast territory and it is fair to recognize them as part of the country in their own right. In this book there are poems in Huarpe by Liliana Herrera Salinas and in Mapuche by Liliana Ancalao, translated into Spanish.
There is also diversity of genres – short stories, biographical stories, poetry, essays, novel fragments, microfiction –, diversity of styles and generational diversity, since it includes authors born between the 1930s and 1980s.
Ana Maria Shua it has a lot to teach about the importance of not feeling like Chekhov, among other things, and how to overcome that illusion to later access a more personal and genuine writing. She is generous with his teachings. It saves newcomers from wasting time, if these people are humble enough to pay attention to it. “The discovery of the particular is one of the essential keys of literary creation.”
The particularity of the text of Esther Cross is the basic idea: anyone who writes and approves their own writing, and if they are also recognized by their peers, is wrong when they think they have a unique way of accommodating words. If there is a writing kitchen, there may also be a factory. Cross tells the story of Lee Israel, who forged hundreds of cards to sell to collectors. In the end, when this woman died, the New York Times He called one of the FBI agents who followed his case. “He was brilliant,” the detective said. “My favorite is the letter in which Hemingway complains that Spencer Tracy was called for the casting of The old man and the sea”.
Maria Teresa Andruetto suggests us not to forget the Argentine writers of the past because there is a source of literary wealth that can also take us out of the thematic limitations of our time.
Fishing as a possible theme for a novel makes Selva Almada reflect on why what is written is written. Luisa Futoranskyauthor of the very original book they are tall tales (I read it when it came out in the eighties and I did not forget it) writes: “Everyone goes through the world (of writing) with their own cartridge case of tools.”
There are common themes: childhood, for example. As Ana María Matute said: “Perhaps childhood is longer than life.”
Motherhood also doesn’t seem to be a theme linked to writing as it was universally at some point. Shirley Jackson, writer of that exquisitely brutal tale that is “The Lottery” (Jackson must be known in doomsday gothic, which Flavia Pittella writes about), says that the idea for that tale came to her almost entirely one morning. hot summer weather as she pushed her daughter’s pram up a hill
The only woman who finds it difficult to write because the invading smell of her son’s diaper reaches her appears in a story by Fernanda García Lao, but that does not prevent her precise, forceful style: “The smell makes the process of going the other way difficult.” . I stay attached to the nose for a moment. Attacked by the mechanical precision of the smell”.
If the theme of motherhood does not inspire reflections on writing, the theme of one’s own or another’s mother does. In the story of Mariana Enriquez About one of those young men who decide not to leave their rooms anymore, there is no compassion in the details that he gives of his mother: if there were, it would not be a story by Enriquez. Another mother is seen by María Rosa Lojo from a totally opposite point of view. Here is a 19th century mother who recreates herself in the apocryphal letters of Eduarda Mansilla. If Lee Israel, the forger, had told me that those letters from Lucio Mansilla’s sister were authentic, I would have believed her.
In the story of Luisa Valenzuela, two friends are traveling in Japan and find the perfect place to have a pleasant conversation. The place is filling up with men. Women and men ignore each other, but they suddenly realize that they are in “a watering hole of young buffaloes”. “It’s a testosterone bath.” In the end they have a feeling of being pregnant, not as a child or anything tangible: “Pregnant with possibilities, with enthusiasm, with ideas, with the desire to write.” It is the value of this book: it is not a testosterone bath, but its particular variety makes you want to read and write.
-Flaminia Ocampo is a writer, researcher and university professor. She wrote “Creole guinea pigs”, “A murderer among us”, “Victoria and her friends” and “The madness of others”, among other books. She lives in New York.
by Flaminia Ocampo
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