Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

On The Dark Side: Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" And Valenzuela's "La Palabra Asesino" , Donald L. Shaw

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Conrad’s famous “The Secret Sharer” and the short story “La palabra asesino” [“The Word ‘Killer’” in its English translation] by the Argentine Luisa Valenzuela both concern psychological self-exploration and self-discovery, through contact with a killer, a situation which challenges conventional moral standards. It is suggested that a comparison between the two stories may throw reciprocal light on both of them. In each story an act or acts of murder becomes a trigger which sets off a train of psychological events, somewhat different in the two cases. Discussion of the differences highlights the authors' priorities and the significance they attach to …

Bellmer's Argentine Doll: Alejandra Pizarnik And The Dis¬Articulation Of The Self , Melanie Nicholson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This essay argues that Alejandra Pizarnik (Buenos Aires, 1936-72), widely recognized as one of the most important figures of twentieth-century Spanish-American poetry, constructs a poetic self that bears a remarkable resemblance to the dolls of German surrealist sculptor and photographer Hans Bellmer. Both poet and artist portray the doll as a passive and melancholy figure, an object that is often dismembered and otherwise stripped of agency. I examine the distinct implications of such a figure for a male surrealist photographer and a female post-surrealist writer. By means of this comparison—admittedly complicated by vast differences in artistic medium and historical context—I …

Reviews Of Recent Publications

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Fuentes, Carlos. Christopher Unborn by Asela Laguna

Faber, Sebastian. Exile and Cultural Hegemony: Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico, 1939-1975 by Miguel González-Abellás

Haines, Brigid and Margaret Littler. Contemporary Women’s Writing in German: Changing the Subject by Anna K. Kuhn

Cate Arries, Francie. Spanish Culture behind Barbed Wire: Memory and Representation of the French by Carmen Moreno-Nuño

Tremblay, Rosaline. L’Écrivain imaginaire, Essai sur le roman québécois, 1960-1995 by Betty Louise McLane-Iles

Ponomareff, Constantin V. One Less Hope: Essays on Twentieth-Century Russian Poets by Maria Khotimsky

Corpses And Capital: Narratives Of Gendered Violence In Two Costa Rican Novels , Laura Barbas Rhoden

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In a region prone to violence and political corruption, Costa Rica has been touted as an ecological paradise, a stable democracy, and an egalitarian society. However, Costa Rican fiction from the late twentieth century contests this idyllic image and presents instead a world of intrigue, violence, and criminality. El año del laberinto (2000) by Tatiana Lobo and Cruz de olvido (1999) by Carlos Cortés are two novels that serve as an excellent introduction to developments in postwar fiction and scholarship from Central America. In my analysis, I first situate the novels in the context of Central American cultural and political …

Displaced Identities And Traveling Texts In Luisa Valenzuela's Black Novel (With Argentines) , Laura R. Loustau

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In Luisa Valenzuela's Black Novel (With Argentines) Roberta and Agustín, the main characters, cross geographic, physical, psychological, sexual and textual borders in order to regain their own writing space, one which would allow them to narrate their own past. Themes that include exile, memory, and literary and artistic creations are presented from a theatrical and deterritorialized space. In Black Novel the city of New York is the stage where the characters/actors create and mix together space and time coordinates. The intention is to (re)construct the individual memory of the characters, and in a more ample perspective, the collective memory of …