Contemporary Mexican Women Writers – Gabriella De Beer

She starts from the premise that Mexi- can literature is literature written by men. Just as all facial tissues are known as “Kleenex, ’’“Literature” with a capital Lis that written by men. They are the ones who write, review, classify, and extend recognition. Women’s writing is the exception, not integrated into the corpus but tacked on to it as if with pins.

Many women writers themselves claim they don’t write “literatura femenina,” and some have attached them- selves to “la Literatura.” Others, often compared to well-established and renowned writers, will in time be forgotten. Domecq feels strongly that literature written by women cannot continue to be treated as an isolated phenomenon without its own context. Domecq pinpoints the year 1950, the year Rosario Castellanos pub- lished Sobre cultura femenina (On Feminine Culture), as the date that marks the full participation of women in literature.

She reasons that there have been four generations or decades of active women writers with a sufficiently voluminous production to be considered a corpus independent of the masculine corpus of the same period. This corpus will create the basis of a tradition of literature written by women and provide a context for studying feminine works.

Domecq disagrees with those women writers who deny that literature has gender and with those who are afraid to say that they write “literatura femenina.” As for women critics, they too are so involved in the patriarchal academy that they deny the existence of “literatura femenina” and prefer to cling to the masculine corpus. Domecq maintains that women’s writing with- out the recognition of a corpus will continue to be a subgenre, a pass- ing fashion.

However, as a corpus, women’s voices will be heard, and their originality, freshness, and subversive potential recognized. Theirs is a new form of writing literature, not an outgrowth of masculine literature. Brianda Domecq’s first novel. Once dias…y algo mas, in many ways sets the parameters of her narrative skill and facility with language. It is a novelized version of an incident in her life when she was kid- napped and held captive for eleven days in 1978.

Meeting the chal- lenge to turn this material into a novel, Domecq marshaled all her storytelling ability to relate this traumatic event in a manner that keeps the reader thoroughly engrossed and hanging on to every thread of this suspenseful tale. The book, written so soon after the event de- picted, seems to capture Domecq’s life as if on film and points to her future as a strong, independent, liberated woman.

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, RO. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819. 0 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data de Beer, Gabriella. Contemporary Mexican women writers : five voices / Gabriella de Beer. p. cm. — (Texas Pan American series) Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-292-71585-4 (alk. paper). — isbn 0-292-71586-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) I . Mexican literature—Women authors—History and criticism. 2. Mexican literature—20th century—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. PQ7133.D4 1996 86o.9’9287’o972—dc2o 96-1302 To Lou, who shares my love of Mexican literature and art Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction i Maria Luisa Puga About the Author and Her Writing 1 1 Conversations with the Writer 25?

Representative Selections 42 One [“Uno,” from Las razones del lago\ 42 Lucrecia [“Lucrecia,” from Intentos] 45 The Guests [“Los invitados,” Unpublished Story] 55 Bibliography yd Silvia Molina About the Author and Her Writing 61 Conversations with the Writer 75 Representative Selections ^7 The New House [“La casa nueva,” from Dicen que me case yo\ S’] What Would You Have Done? [“,:Que hubieras hechoP,” ^xom Dicen que me case yo\ go The Problem [“El problema,” from Imagen de Hector] g8 Bibliography loy Brianda Domecq About the Author and Her Writing loj Conversations with the Writer 124 Representative Selections 14^ Balzac [“Balzac,” from Bestiario domestico] 14^ In Memoriam [“In memoriam,” from Bestiario domestico] .

i^6 Galatea [“Galatea,” from Bestiario domestico] i^o Bibliography Carmen Boullosa About the Author and Her Writing lyy Conversations with the Writer lyy Representative Selections ipo III [“III,” from ipo Mary, Why Don’t You? [“Propusieron a Maria,” from Teatro heretico] ig6 Bibliography 205?

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 2e1f45e87863a023
• File Extension: .pdf
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• Title: –
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• ISBN: 0292715854, 0292715862
• Pages: 285
• Language: English (en)

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