The silent treatment: Alejandra Basualto´s a esthetic of censorship

Abstract

Alejandra Basualto is a little studied yet significant Chilean prose writer and  poet  whose first short story collection, La mujer de yeso (1988), exemplifies the redefinition of the woman writer that occurred in many female- authored fiction texts published during the Pinochet regime. Exemplifying the aesthetic of censorship and silence characterizing her entire short story collection, analyses in this article of “La espera” and “1954” reveal how Basualto undermines the repressive hierarchies defining Chilean politics of the dictatorship era as well as the national literary establishment through what I call her aesthetic of silence and censorship. The art of censorship recalls the context of dictatorial repression Basualto confronts in this

collection, while the aesthetic of silence points to the dialogue with international feminist thought perceptible in the compilation. In these two short stories, creative women protagonists challenge institutional power structures by assuming the feminized positions of vulnerability and silence. Basualto incorporates literary strategies like metaphors, mythical allusions, and ellipses to create an intricate textual dynamic representing repressive military tactics like censorship and disappearing dissidents. A story inscribed on a tortured and repressed female body longing to create, an extended metaphor for the Chilean nation and its writers, “La espera” showcases artists’ frustrated attempts to create during the regime while representing the psychological despair of Chileans suffering due to the “disappearance” of their loved ones. The focus on women and writing in “1954” depicts women authors’ need to identify female literary models and to imagine belonging to same-sex writers’ communities to succeed as authors despite the male-dominant literary establishment, traditional gender roles, and military and self-censorship.