Cortázar-Heker (1978-1981). Controversy Elided/Genocide Denied

Abstract

I discuss in this text the well-known “controversy” between Liliana Heker and Julio Cortázar from a little traveled perspective, linked to the analysis of social discourses, with attention to the traces left in them by the genocide of the forced disappearance of people carried out by the civic dictatorship -Army military (1976-1983). I point out as a working hypothesis the impossibility of the controversy presented by Heker, based on the tear, under the conditions of the dictatorial context, of the prevailing “reading contract” in the cultural interaction of the Latin American and Argentine left during the 1960s-70s. I analyze the “emotion / exaggeration” categories, and some of their associated terms, as a critical resource used by Heker against certain statements by Cortázar. I thus seek to approximate a critical reflection on what I call “genocide denied” as a condition accepted in Heker's speech to carry out his “controversy”.

Keywords

• cortázar, heker, polémica, discurso sociales, contrato de lectura, genocidio.