How do contemporary female authors in Latin America tackle gender
violence in their writings?
This book analyses the portrayal of violence against women in the works
of ten contemporary Latin American female authors: Alejandra Jaramillo
Morales, Laura Restrepo, Ena Lucia Portela, Wendy Guerra, Selva
Almada, Claudia Pineiro, Diamela Eltit, Carla Guelfenbein, Lydia Cacho
and Fernanda Melchor.
Governments in Latin America have routinely failed to protect women
from abuse, threats, censorship, repressive policies on reproduction
rights, forced displacement, sex trafficking, disappearances and
femicides, and this book beats a new path through these burning issues
by drawing on the knowledges encapsulated by sociology as much as the
visions articulated by literature. Through an exploration of works
published in the twenty-first century by women writers from Argentina,
Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, this volume reconceptualises positions
of privilege and power in the region and provides new readings about the
meaning of gender, sexuality, violence and the female body in
contemporary Latin America.
The aim of this book is to raise awareness of the daily threat of violence
against women in Latin America, underline the importance of the voice of
Latin American women within that daily struggle, and encourage
governments, organisations and institutions in Latin America and the
Caribbean to take gender violence seriously and fight to secure peace and
social equality for all women in the modern world.
