The new Argentine writers on the literary map: context and factors of their entry into world literature

Abstract

The so-called New Argentine Prose is a recent phenomenon in the Argentine literary field that a few years ago began to attract the interest of international critics and readers. Writers such as Mariana Enríquez and Samanta Schweblin undoubtedly represent an editorial success, but there are also other authors of their generation, that is, the one born around 1970, such as Selva Almada, María Gainza, Ariana Harwicz or Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, that have appeared in recent years in the shortlists and longlists of the prestigious International Booker Prize, been fairly recognised at book fairs, published by major Spanish publishers and translated into other languages. Is it a small women’s literary revolution coming from Buenos Aires? Despite the large variety of styles and themes deployed by these writers, we shall ask ourselves whether there is something in their novels and short stories that we cannot find in the literature written by men of the same generation, what has been their path to consecration and why do they have such visibility. The objective of this study is to try to offer some answers based on the theory of World Literature and to try to situate these authors (taking into account the generational approach) in the national and international literary field.