Chilean Women's Poetry Under Neoliberalism, 1980-2020 - by Bárbara Fernández-Melleda (Hardcover)

About the Book

Examines how women poets have expressed resistance against neoliberalism in Chile at times of intense political upheaval.

Book Synopsis

Chilean Women's Poetry under Neoliberalism, 1980-2020 explores how the works of 6 women poets interact with the imposition and development of neoliberalism in Chile over 4 decades. The book follows a chronology that joins poetic work that criticises the model from its inception during dictatorship times (1980s), through a democratic transition that did not live up to its expectations (1990s), until the naturalisation of neoliberalism as a new normal that seems not possible to overcome (2000s). Finally, the 2010s show how the great inequalities denounced in the works from the previous 3 decades found concrete resistance through the October 2019 social revolt. This juncture brings new poetry hoping for a refoundation of Chile while also imagining the failure of a revolutionary movement. In the end, the latter came to pass.

Review Quotes

Bárbara Fernández-Melleda brilliantly kickstarts her analytical journey when the sweeping violence of the Pinochet dictatorship installed the neoliberal model. Her book highlights various mechanisms of resistance against a repressive and individualistic social system. It also examines the asymmetry affecting Chilean literary production, perpetuating patriarchal practices that reduce or negate the contributions carried by the aesthetics of women writers.--Diamela Eltit, winner of the National Literature Prize of Chile 2018