Paperweight: “Two feminists talk” and two other recommended books for the week

Author: Violeta Barrientos Silva

Interviews

Pages: 190

Publisher: Featherweight

The most valuable and remarkable thing about this book is that it transcends feminist theory –necessary and important, it is worth clarifying–, to focus rather on practice, on the personal experiences of its protagonists. Because as Maruja Barrig, one of the interviewees, says, she herself “was a feminist without knowing it.”

Throughout these pages, Barrig and Gina Vargas, two of the main promoters of the feminist movement in Peru in the 20th century, dialogue with the poet and activist Violeta Barrientos, giving shape to a powerful testimony that crosses topics such as their family environment, their studies and work, marriage and motherhood, sexual freedom and, of course, the feminist movements of which they were part.

Between the anecdote and the position taken, the stories of Barrig and Vargas make up a beautiful and hard report of several decades of unequal struggle, marked by adversity, full of nuances and even contradictions, but always open to learning and solidarity between women who tried to break with a patriarchal model that is still severe and unjust today.

Towards the end of the book, both reflect on the feminist movement of the 21st century (and not that of the “last century”, hence the emphasis in the title) and take different positions (one from enthusiasm, the other more bent on bitterness). and disappointment). Fragmentation of positions and visions that, however, do not have to be negative; but rather, as Vargas would say, “it could mean that multiple initiatives are taking hold, identities that are becoming stronger,” and that they could promote “a possibility of articulating struggles.”

Editor: Natalia Sobrevilla Perea

Test

Pages: 244

Editorial: Economic Culture Fund/UNMSM/Petroperú

In these years in which the bicentennials of several South American nations are passing, this project promoted by Natalia Sobrevilla is particularly ambitious and innovative. Because there are not many books dedicated to studying jointly (and not individually) the processes of independence in the region.

That is what this book presents, which brings together five essays by five historians (Argentineans Gabriel Di Meglio and Alejandro M. Rabinovich, Colombian Daniel Gutiérrez Ardila, Chilean Juan Luis Ossa, and Peruvian Sobrevilla) studying the cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela from five perspectives, among them the administrative structures of the Colony, the warlike confrontations, or the popular participation in the respective independence processes.

Far from being isolated essays, thematic points of view are intertwined in the book and the exchange between its authors is perceived. And this leads to an approach to the process of regional independence as a connected phenomenon. An interesting chance to understand with a broader vision that key stage in American history.

Author: Ana Carolina Zegarra

Poetry

Pages: 60

Publisher: The Balance Editorial Workshop

“Language abandons me” says one of the verses of “Víscera Beltrán”, a book that may seem impregnable at times. Without a clear connection at first glance, disjointed in unconnected and random fragments, but that shows us an author who throws out very suggestive images and ideas with amazing naturalness.

Read more carefully, it is possible to find certain lines that serve as a guide. On the one hand, there is the inescapable influence of Arequipa –the city of Zegarra–, which bursts in with precise allusions (the Virgencita de Chapi, Mercaderes); on the other, a language that is nourished by everyday speech: not only urban and contemporary, but also traditional words (“a little chajualla”).

And lastly, the enigmatic visceral or ventral references that run through the book (“my liver plays dumb”, “tempera colors in the duodenum”, “I arrive with tenderness in my belly”), and that increase the sensation of to be in front of a collection of poems written from the bowels.