Profile

My research and publications focus on writing about violence and the politics of aesthetics in the Southern Cone with a transnational approach, in twentieth-century narratives that propose alternative imaginaries to defeated revolutionary projects. My research contributes to the field of Latin American Literature and Memory Studies by acknowledging the history of underrepresented voices, such as women, indigenous communities, and non-heroic narratives, and making a methodological intervention integrating the analysis of fictional and non-fictional texts that expand the notion of documentation.

In my book project Memorias de la traición y traición de la memoria: narrativas de la derrota en Chile y Argentina (Memories of Betrayal and Betrayal of Memory: Narratives of Defeat in Chile and Argentina), I argue that representations of betrayal, often evoking terrible forms of torture and suffering, allow us to critique a patriarchal and epic vision of the traumatic past in the Global South. In dialogue with literary theorists (Avelar, Masiello, Longoni) and philosophers (Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida, JM Bernstein), my research opens a conceptual space to imagine what it means to be a political actor in a political and economic system that benefits from such violence. Memories of Betrayal examines betrayal in three different genres: Marcia Merino’s testimony My Truth. Beyond Horror, I Accuse, (Chile, 1993); the graphic novel Perramus by Juan Sasturain and Alberto Breccia (Argentina, 1985); and Enrique Lihn’s play, Dialogues of the Disappeared (Chile, written between 1973 and 1976 and published in 2018). Overlooked by scholars, these texts record state-sponsored violence, and problematize the very idea of documenting as they defy the limits and possibilities of their own genre.  

My career as a fictional writer has allowed me to engage with a large corpus of literature of recent production, authors, and communities. El Tarambana, (2013, 2016) rewrites a picaresque novel through a character struggling to survive in Chile´s dictatorship. Los multipatópodos (2017) is a bestiary, and Vals chilote is a novel about a guerilla fighter who returns to his home in Chiloé to embody a rebellion by himself. I recently published Vals Chilote (2 editions in 2022, Mantis and Fondo de Cultura Económica).