Unida por el hilo invisible de una viril personalidad, que ama lo femenino como esencia, surge una historia, una novela dividida en episodios que el autor gusta de arrancar de lo profundo de la intimidad. Estas historias son trozos de vida captadas desde los ojos de sus obsesionantes heroinas. Son la reflexion madura de un pensador, que si el lector se descuida, puede llevarlo a laberintos de los que no le sera facil salir. Mujeres de transparencia y ensonacion, corporeizadas por la voluntad que las evoca y les rinde pleito y homenaje. Mujeres llegadas del espejo eterno, de las ineludibles permanencias: en pinturas, en la vibracion de los objetos, desde la memoria precisa. Jose Armando Lopez Freeman emerge de todas, lleno del alma suya, como el poeta. Mario Julio del Campo y Villareal
Ana Clavel is a remarkable contemporary Mexican writer whose literary and multimedia oeuvre is marked by its queerness. The queer is evinced in the manner in which she disturbs conceptions of the normal not only by representing outlaw sexualities and dark desires but also by incorporating into her fictive and multimedia worlds that which is at odds with normalcy as evinced in the presence of the fantastical, the shadow, ghosts, cyborgs, golems and even urinals. Clavels literary trajectory follows a queer path in the sense that she has moved from singular modes of creative expression in the form of literary writing, a traditional print medium, towards other non-literary forms. Some of Clavels works have formed the basis of wider multimedia projects involving collaboration with various artists, photographers, performers and IT experts. Her works embrace an array of hybrid forms including the audiovisual, internet-enabled technology, art installation, (video) performance and photography. By foregrounding the queer heterogeneous narrative themes, techniques and multimedia dimension of Clavels oeuvre, the aim of this monograph is to attest to her particular contribution to Hispanic letters, which arguably is as significant as that of more established Spanish American boom femenino women writers.
This book explores Violeta Parra’s visual art, focusing on her embroideries (arpilleras), paintings, papier-mâché collages and sculptures. Parra is one of Chile’s great artists and musicians, yet her visual art is relatively unknown. Her fusion of complex imagery from Chilean folk music and culture with archetypes in Western art results in a hybrid body of work. Parra’s hybridism is the story of this book, in which Dillon explores Parra’s ‘painted songs’, the ekphrastic nature of her creations and the way ideas translate from her music and poetry into her visual art. The book identifies three intellectual currents in Parra’s art: its relationship to motifs from Chilean popular and oral culture; its relationship to the work of other modern artists; and its relationship to the themes of her protest music. It argues that Parra’s commentaries on inequality and injustice have as much resonance today as they did fifty years ago. Dillon also explores the convergence between Parra’s art and the work of other modern twentieth-century artists, considering its links to Surrealism, Pop Art and the Mexican Muralism Movement. Parra exhibited in open-air art fairs, museums and cultural centres as well as in prestigious venues such as Museu de Arte Moderna do Brasil (the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil) and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Paris. This book reflects on Parra’s socially-engaged work as it was expressed through her exhibitions in these centres as well as in through own cultural centre La carpa de la reina.
In the end, it is precisely the difference and repetition imbued in oppositionality that establish, destabilize, and re-define the identity to the subject who is open to different angles on otherness."--BOOK JACKET.
Explores the contributions of three female free-thinkers to the development of feminist consciousness and democracy, examining their lives and works to discover their contributions to the Generation of 1898 in Spain.
Elcor Vincent Aragundi lived his career as a professional racing jockey, but as a native from Ecuador born in Quito, he was first inspired with poetry by his mother when he was still a boy. Between then and the moment he had grown, he began to write poetry in Spanish when he was still in school. He continued to write through the years even after he came to the United States back in March of 1954. Not knowing a word of English when he stepped off the plane in Florida, he ended up getting lost at a bus stop to eat. He returned unable to match the bus he was on with that of the number he held. The bus driver had unknowingly left without him. It took two hours before they could find someone that would translate. English has always been a huge struggle for him, though he desperately wanted to learn. It at times would leave him frustrated from the defied opportunities from his inability to communicate and adapt into the language. That was then; now a proud American citizen celebrating his fifty-fifth year in the United States, he is a renowned poet with trophies, medals, and merits awarded to him for his work, his passion, and his art. Recognized by the International Society of Poets in Owings Mills, Maryland, “A Flight in the Night” was published back in 2002 by the International Library of Poetry. He has been writing in English now for twenty-five years. With over a hundred poems written, half of them reside in Spanish, and the other half in English. His work is not only a milestone but an inspiration of the heart that proves yet that nothing can stand in the way of his love for poetry.
A bilingual collection of enchanting folk tales from the peoples of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, and Paraguay, accompanied by historical and geographical background as well as color photographs. Containing numerous tales that have never before appeared in an English-language children's story collection, this book presents many of author Paula Martín's favorite stories from her many years of experience in storytelling around the world and particularly in South America. It stands as a unique folklore and storytelling resource that will give readers a better understanding of life and culture in the southern part of South America. Readers of all ages will delight in entertaining stories about animals, plants and trees, musical instruments, lost places, fantastic creatures, and witches and devils. This collection also includes never-ending tales, sky stories, and folk tales about fools. The book provides related cultural information about the lands where these stories originated as well as the people who tell these tales, traditional games of South America, and recipes for regional food items that can go hand in hand with the stories.
Although the boom in historical fiction and historiography about Spain's recent past has found an eager readership, these texts are rarely studied as two halves of the same story. With Genre Fusion: A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary Spain, Sara J. Brenneis argues that fiction and nonfiction written by a single author and focused on the same historical moment deserve to be read side-by-side. By proposing a literary model that examines these genres together, Genre Fusion gives equal importance to fiction and historiography in Spain. In her book, Brenneis develops a new theory of "genre fusion" to show how authors who write both historiography and fiction produce a more accurate representation of the lived experience of Spanish history than would be possible in a single genre. Genre Fusion opens with a straightforward overview of the relationships among history, fiction, and memory in contemporary culture. While providing an up-to-date context for scholarly debates about Spain's historical memory, Genre Fusion also expands the contours of the discussion beyond the specialized territory of Hispanic studies. To demonstrate the theoretical necessity of genre fusion, Brenneis analyzes pairs of interconnected texts (one a work of literature, the other a work of historiography) written by a single author. She explores how fictional and nonfictional works by Montserrat Roig, Carmen Martín Gaite, Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, and Javier Marías unearth the collective memories of Spain's past. Through these four authors, Genre Fusionn traces the transformation of a country once enveloped in a postwar silence to one currently consumed by its own history and memory. Brenneis demonstrates that, when read through the lens of genre fusion, these Spanish authors shelve the country's stagnant official record of its past and unlock the collective and personal accounts of the people who constitute Spanish history.
Women's Narrative and Film in 20th Century Spain examines the development of the feminine cultural tradition in spain and how this tradition reshaped and defined a Spanish national identity. Each chapter focuses on representation of autobiography, alienation and exile, marginality, race, eroticism, political activism, and feminism within the ever-changing nationalisms in different regions of Spain. The book describes how concepts of gender and difference shaped the individual, collective, and national identities of Spanish women and significantly modified the meaning and representation of female sexuality.
