The Women Who Rock
This Azul blog will be Verde, the colour of the new wave of Latin American feminism — combating machismo in its myriad forms, from the decriminalization of abortion to staggering rates of feminicide — and largely led by our women writers who, dare I say (yes, I do), are simply the best in the world, and not just by writing. “Las escritoras ponemos el cuerpo” is their mantra, total devotion, writing and activism, body and soul.
Our last Azul Prize winner, Claudia Piñeiro, revered for her best-selling crime and mystery novels, short stories, film scripts, and plays, is one of Argentina’s leading voices in the struggle. “In my country,” she writes for The Guardian, “even rights enshrined in the constitution are being crushed in the name of God.” Her call to action resonates in the work of Man Booker finalists Ariana Harwicz and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara; the impossibly talented Selva Almada, Agustina Bazterrica, Cecilia Szperling, and Mariana Enriquez; literary sensation Dolores Reyes (whose must-read Eartheater made the Oprah cut for the best fall reads of 2020); transgender writer and actress Camila Sosa Villada, who just won the prestigious Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize, given by the Guadalajara Book Fair in recognition of the literary work of women in the Hispanic world. And that’s just Argentina. And that’s just for starters.
I’d propose we work our way up the Americas (or down, as Victoria Donda reminds us, because the Earth is round), but a comprehensive list of all our women writers/activists is an impossible task. So I will, instead, list the ladies who make all of this possible, the women behind the scenes, the movers and shakers in our literary world and our unbreaking engagement to bring together readers and writers to think, to create, to come together, and to leave this place a little bit better than how we found it.
Topping my list are leading literary managers in the planet, Cristina Fuentes LaRoche at the Hay Festival, and Marisol Schulz and Laura Niembro at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, who jointly share this year’s Princess of Asturias Awards of Communication and Humanities, so you don’t have to take my word for it. You can take the Spanish Crown’s. In Nicaragua we have Claudia Neira Bermúdez at Centroamerica Cuenta, the most important literary festival in the region Neruda called “the sweet waist of the Americas,” currently offering the finest, most dynamic ongoing digital literary programming in the Spanish language.
Then there are the women who also write and lead workshops and run programmes and all sorts of literary projects: Luna Miguel and Raquel Martínez-Gómez in Spain, Maria Fernanda Ampuero (if you haven’t yet read Cockfight, stop reading this, click on the link and get it NOW) in Ecuador, Natalia Porta López in Argentina, Manuela Júdice in Portugal, Selene Tinco in Perú, Wara Godot Ruiz in Bolivia, Vivian Schlesinger in Brazil, and Martha Bátiz (Mexico, Colectivo Imagina), Cynthia Rodríguez (Venezuela, UpaUpa), Piedad Sáenz (Colombia, LadyBooks), Ximena Berecochea (Mexico, ICE Americas), Mabel González Pacheco (Colombia, Mujeres con Todas las Letras) and Mariana Marín and Sol Oromí (Argentina, Legados) here in Canada.
Then there are the publishers, like our beloved Carolina Orloff, who renders our work possible by bringing the leading voices in Latin America to English readers. How else could the Guardian make the (correct) call that Margarita García Robayo is amongst our top 10 short story writers of all time, you read me: right up there with Borges, Gabo, Rulfo, Cortázar, and the great Lispector. (NB: a shout-out to Argentina’s Samantha Schweblin, also listed.)
And last, and arguably above all, there are the journalists (NB again: in our part of the world, dear gringo reader, as Gabriel García Márquez put it, journalism is a literary genre; kindly get over your copycatting “creative non-fiction” if you can muster a plausible equivalent for the art and science we master: crónica in Spanish, crônica in Portuguese), and here’s where the list is too long and too perfect for words. I will name a few: in the realm of the divine there is Mexican-born Alma Guillermoprieto, and Portugal’s Alexandra Lucas Coelho, Argentina’s Leila Guerriero, our 2018 Azul laureate, and Hinde Pomeraniec, Sonia Budassi, María Moreno, Verónica Abdala, Flavia Costa (plus so, so many more), Brazil’s Paula Schmitt, Ecuador’s Sabrina Duque, Colombia’s Carolina Sanín, Peru’s Gabriela Wiener, Venezuela’s Dulce María Ramos, Chile’s Cecilia García-Huidobro and Alia Trabucco Zerán and (at the BBC in London) Carolina Robino.
These are, dear reader, the women who rock my world, a commitment beyond the pen. A commitment from our heart, verde.
We wear our green bandanas and sign off with our emoji
Also, don’t miss the event «Pour mémoire: écrivaines pour la liberté».
Lecture publique organisée par le Comité femmes du Centre québécois du P.E.N. International et présentée dans le cadre des Journées Mémoire pour l’espoir du Festival littéraire international Metropolis bleu, au Salon du livre de Montréal.
En ligne.
Samedi 14 novembre, 18h30
Gratuit.
Inscription : https://app.eventnroll.com/fr/billetterie/achat-de-billet/1884/6074/WEB/V710
Des membres du comité femmes du Centre québécois du P.E.N. international lisent des textes choisis de huit écrivaines d’ici et d’ailleurs qui ont vécu elles-mêmes, leurs familles, leurs communautés, les violences de la guerre, de la dictature, de la censure, de l’exil et de l’opprobre. Leur engagement témoigne d’une conscience profonde face aux droits humains. Elles liront aussi des extraits de leurs œuvres liées à la thématique de la liberté.
Écrivaines lues : Maram al-Masri (Syrie-France), Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (autochtone Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, Wingham, Ontario), Tanella Boni (Côte d’Ivoire, 1954- ), Marianne Cohn (Allemagne 1921-Haute-Savoie 1944), Monique Bosco (Autriche-Québec), Asli Erdogan (Turquie, 1967), Toni Morrison (États-Unis, 1931-2019), Susana Romano Sued (Argentine), Marie Vieux-Chauvet (Haïti, 1916 – États-Unis, 1973)
Lectrices : Martine Audet, Germaine Beaulieu, Denise Desautels, Louise Dupré, Dominique Gaucher, Laure Morali, Diane Régimbald, Lori Saint-Martin, Élise Turcotte
