Diamela Eltit: Essays on Chilean Literature, Politics, and Culture

by Diamela Eltit, Michael J Lazzara (editor), Monica Barrientos (editor)

Esta Antología Personal de Diamela Eltit se caracteriza por una intensidad pocas veces vista en la más reciente literatura hispanoamericana. Hermanada con su compatriota
Roberto Bolaño en el esfuerzo por llevar la narración a esos sitios arriesgados donde el lector podría exasperarse –como también ocurre con Beckett–, la convicción de su esfuerzo a la postre resulta salvajemente cautivadora.

Una vez nos adentramos en su universo narrativo, ya no queremos salir, porque estos textos nos vuelven “claustrofílicos”, adictos a esa voz que insiste en apoderarse de nuestra imaginación porque la suya ha alcanzado el sitio inesperado, la mansión del grito.

Si la novela gótica hacía del desván el sitio de la locura, Diamela Eltit prefiere la alcoba como ese sitio irreductible donde probamos la vida alterna que alucina lo mismo que susurra, que estremece de pavor a la vez que seduce con sus arranques de vulnerabilidad y ternura.

304 pages, Paperback

Published December 14, 2023

About the author

Diamela Eltit (born 1947, Santiago de Chile) is a well known Chilean writer and university professor. Between 1966 and 1976 she graduated in Spanish studies at the Universidad Católica de Chile and followed graduate studies in Literature at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. In 1977 she began a career as Spanish and literature teacher at high school level in several public schools in Santiago, such as the Instituto Nacional and the Liceo Carmela Carvajal. In 1984 she started teaching at universities in Chile, where she is currently professor at the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana and abroad. During the last thirty years Eltit has lectured and participated in conferences, seminars and literature events throughout the world, in Europe, Africa, North and Latin America. She has been several times visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and also at Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Washington University at Saint Louis, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia and, since 2007, New York University, where she holds a teaching appointment as Distinguished Global Visiting Professor and teaches at the Creative Writing Program in Spanish. In the academic year 2014-2015 Eltit was invited by Cambridge University, U.K., to the Simon Bolivar Chair at the Center of Latin American Studies. Since 2014 Diamela Eltit´s personal and literary archives are deposited at the University of Princeton. Through her career several hundreds of Latin American young writers have participated as students at her highly appreciated literature workshops.