Late Book Culture in Argentina by Craig Epplin (review) (original) (raw)
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In the aftermath of state terror, memory has emerged as a significant and perhaps contentious topic. The particular type of memory considered in this article is that of the children of those who suffered state repression. The wider impact of events and how these are remembered is a growing area of memory studies and has seen the implementation of terms such as multidirectional memory, absent memory, prosthetic memory and postmemory, the latter being the one most often applied to children of the post-generation. This article explores the literary legacy of the repression in Argentina during the dictatorship period of 1976 to 1983 (known as ‘El Proceso’), as demonstrated in the literature of the post-generation. Using Félix Bruzzone’s 2008 novel Los topos as its primary example, it will consider questions of second-generation memory and identity and explore the definition of postmemory, its suitability and applicability to the Argentine situation and the literary manifestation of this type of memory. This article demonstrates how works of contemporary Argentine testimonial literature not only redefine the concept of witness but also of memory and in particular, postmemory.
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Diffraction and Profanation: New Forms of Publishing in Argentinian Literature
The political-economic crisis that took place in Argentina towards 2001 is usually marked as a point of general inflection, which it has its inevitable result in different socio-cultural aspects and, in a restricted sense, in cultural products and the literature of this country. This temporal fracture implies a change of voices and contents, along with a transformation in the form in which literature circulates in the Argentinian society. Nevertheless, in the specific scope of literature, we can state that there is a movement of change in Argentinian literature and its forms of diffusion already in the nineties. The crisis will intensify a conscious movement that is conceived by itself like an alternative way to the traditional publishing market. In this sense, we found in the last 15 years a proliferation of publishing projects and literary spreading. The use and intensification during the past years of these alternative ways to the most classic publishing forms are not only an artistic mark, but also a refreshed conception of publishing that demands through its formal presentation a critical reframing of the different social aspects of this industry and literature itself. This work sets out to show a brief retrospective of the new forms of publishing and spreading in the present Argentinian literature, putting on relief the meaning this movement entails: as way of diffraction (Haraway 1992) and profanation (Agamben 2005).
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THE DISCOURSES OF ARGENTINIAN LITERARY CRITICISM AND FRENCH LITERARY THEORY (1953-1978)
Post-World War II French critical theory was a key pivot-point in the renovation of Hispanic American literary thought during the 1960s and 1970s. Starting from a text by Nicolás Rosa and Foucault’s concept of discourse, the article addresses the reception of said theory in Argentina, both in its political and epistemological dimensions, with a particular emphasis on the critical uses of that tradition, and the collective nature of the problematization of literature in relation to other practices and discourses.
Drawing on their travels to Argentina under the last military regime (1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983) and its aftermath, V. S. Naipul and Colm Tóibín produced narratives about the country that are worth examining for the different versions of our recent history displayed by both works for an English-speaking readership. In The Return of Eva Perón Naipaul turned his experience of Argentina into a series of virulent journalistic articles ascribing its postcolonial condition mostly to Argentineans themselves. For his part, Tóibín chose Argentina as the bleak backdrop to his first gay novel, The Story of the Night, an inhospitable home in which its main character has to find the fragments of his identity. From a comparative perspective, I briefly describe in this reflective paper the key themes used by Naipaul and Tóibín in their portrayal of Argentina, and I study the divergent points of view towards the times under consideration that the writers adopt in view of their differing ideological agendas. Whereas Naipaul's travelogue is grounded on its exceptional literary quality but on truths that call to be disputed; even though set in a relatively realistic context, Tóibín's novel summons the reader to a serious interrogation of the premises upon which the Argentine reality of the 1980s and 1990s is based. I finally discuss the forever-fictional quality attributed to or inflicted on the representation of the country by both journalists and writers. Throughout the text, I keep to a rather intimate tone and to my perspective as a member to the culture under representation.