Men have educated and continue to educate me. Women barely had a chance: from my professors to published authors, women don't get published enough - which is to say assertive enough, white enough, or even alive enough to get their voices heard enough, paid attention to, discussed, shared, awarded, sold out, published again (with some wonderful exceptions, obviously).
Which takes me to..
Have you read Liliana Bodoc?
She's catalogued in the fantasy genre of literature, because of her successful Saga of the Borderlands (the first book has been translated as The Days of the Deer). For anyone who doesn't know much of the history of the conquest of Latin America, her saga fits perfectly into the fantasy genre. Yet, the horrors that she describes have been well documented.
She's undoubtedly a great writer, capable of holding a story while being poetic, and she's clearly learned her history. Read her, ask for further translations of this saga, it'll make you think about the dilemmas the world is going through today.
And, if you are interested in why I say history is intertwined with her saga, look up:
-Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America (the problem of The Other);
-Fray Bartolome de las Casas, A Short Account of the destruction of the Indies;
-"mita, yanaconazgo, encomienda";
-the books of Chilam Balam;
-accounts of the killing of the last leader of the Inca empire, Tupac Amaru;
-everything about the mining of silver and gold and its transportation to Europe;
-anything about gender studies on the medicinal knowledge that women had until witch hunts started around 1450 and lasted for three centuries, and how men became the new undisputed healers.
Liliana Bodoc is said to have been praised by Ursula Le Guin - whether that's true or not, if you've read her you'd believe she deserved it. She died last year, aged 59, with another saga unfinished. I miss her. As I probably miss without knowing all the women that would have helped me through life if they had had the chance to be published, taught at university, awarded and called regularly by the media to offer their views on everything.
Would you like me to tell you about another Spanish-speaking writer?
