Abstract

MELLADO, Luciana. Iparraguirre's La Tierra del fuego: Patagonia Revisited. Anclajes [online]. 2009, vol.13, n.2, pp.145-164. ISSN 1851-4669.

This work examines the narrative construction of the Patagonia in La tierra del fuego (1998) by Sylvia Iparraguirre. The novel traces the imaginary character of the region during the 19th century related intertextually to other historical and literary representations of this space that are revisited and revised. These representations come principally from the European foundational narrative and promote the literary and political definition of the place in a hegemonic version that the novel denaturalizes. La tierra del fuego recalls the manners with which England writes selectively the austral Patagonia in the 19th century as a subordinate space, and remembers the problematic inscription of this territory in the political national cartography. The text shows the discursive character of the imaginary geography of the region in relation to the textual productivity of the British metropolis, whose accounts on the place were central to legitimize its presence and intervention in the territory. Iparraguirre shows, in the statement and the enunciation, the obvious link between the colonial project that England undertook in the Patagonia and the strategies used to describe and narrate nature and local culture. The writer displays the ideologically motivated quality of the regional narrations, including her own writing.

Keywords : Argentine literature; Historical novel; Imaginary geography; Patagonia.

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