Streams of Silver: Six Contemporary Women Writers from Argentina

Streams of Silver fills an absence in the study of the works by women writers from Argentina, notwithstanding a rich tradition going back to the birth of Argentina as an independent nation. The purpose of this volume is to provide an in-depth analysis of the fiction by selected, representative contemporary women Alicia Jurado, Elvira Orphee, Alina Diaconu, Alicia Steimberg, Cecilia Absatz, and Reina Roffe. These writers represent a spectrum, from established writers of the generation of 1955 to younger writers who started publishing in the mid-seventies.
An introductory essay places the writers within the established Argentine literary tradition, followed by short biographical sketches acquainting the reader with each individual writer. The interpretive essays discuss the writers’ main works, themes, and literary techniques. They also include materials from scholarly studies of their work, as well as excerpts from reviews published in Argentine newspapers and journals. Interviews with each of the writers, conducted by the author, draw out their life experiences and the motivating forces and influences behind their work. They also shed a personal light on some of the issues discussed in the essays, such as how Argentine political events such as Peronism (1946-35, 1973-76) and the Proceso (1976-83) and their censorship affected their lives and writing, on feminism and its impact on them and their work, and on their contributions to contemporary Latin American women’s writing.