Body-World in Diamela Eltit’s Essay Writing. An Initial Approximation

Abstract

This article is focused on Diamela Eltit’s critical discourse present in three books: Emergencias (2000), Signos Vitales (2008) and Réplicas (2016). They comprise a variety of texts and topics and a vast diversity of primary sources, such as conferences, literary critique, art critique, forewords and book presentations, collaborations in magazines and newspapers, among others. We are interested in the representation of the body in Diamela Eltit’s essay writing, which we find anticipated, considering the current discussions revolving around corporality in contemporary theoretical exchange of points of view. We read the body from the subjectivity of the essay writer, in a style that breaks the body-mind duality, establishing a fissure which allows an intrusion in the materiality of emotions and not only in the essay construction as an instrument of thinking and knowledge. Considering that, the body in Eltit’s essay writing is presented as subject, recognition and emancipation, this proposal has been developed from the categorization of body/pain, body/market and body/social class/memory of women’s body in her writing.

Keywords

• diamela eltit, ensayo, corporalidades, cuerpo mujer, cuerpo clase