A siege of the archive: the ornament and its textures in Río de las congojas, by Libertad Demitrópulos

Abstract

In this article, I propose that Libertad Demitrópulos rewrites, in Río de las congojas (1981), the colonial chronicles in order to imprint a trace bearing feminine subjectivities, alternate from the existing ones in the official archive of her production context. Said procedure is achieved through the resemantization of a specific category: the female ornament. The novel challenges the hegemonic meaning of this notion, and creates, in its place, a new poetics about ornament which is able to discuss the dominant archive during the years of State Terrorism.