Configurarse : el testimonio íntimo en las cronistas transfronterizas

Abstract

This paper explores the formal relationships between the contemporary chronicle and other first-person documentary narratives, as well as the relationship between genre and gender. It proposes a re-reading of Gloria Anzaldúa as a transborder and transdiscursive author whose Borderlands/La Frontera could be the origin of a queer genealogy for a certain type of contemporary chronicle, one that is both female and feminist. In order to look at how this trend includes new configurations of Latin American subjectivities the paper focuses on a comparative analysis of Cristina Rivera Garza’s El invencible verano de Liliana and Gabriela Wiener’s Huaco retrato. The objective is to identify the literary and performative strategies that both authors use to offer a vision of female subjectivities in the process of becoming. The analyses are done by applying Rosi Braidotti’s and Adriana Cavarero’s feminist theories on subjectivity and emotions. It is argued that the figure of the “intimate chronicler” can be used to describe a new type of female narrator in testimonial-(auto)biographical-style narratives. It is concluded that the mentioned authors are able of incorporating other subjectivities and figurations of the feminine to the current debates on gender representation in Latin American literature and culture.