The Contemporary Chilean Urban Chronicle: A Contested and Contesting Genre?

• In Event: Ojo de loca: Pedro Lemebel, crónicas, masculinidades.

Abstract

My paper explores the representations of memory in the contemporary urban chronicle in Chile. The urban chronicle has shown an ability to depict the voices of ordinary people, who have remained on the margins of the official discourse of successful modernization and stable democracy. Here, I argue that the contemporary urban chronicle, even though it has until recently been marginalized by Chilean literary scholars and has been considered a ‘minor’ and hybrid genre, can be seen as an alternative form of historical memory in the Chilean neoliberal context. It is precisely the flexible character of this genre, which incorporates literature, history and journalism, which allows these texts to show particular sides to quotidian urban life in Chile. Through a close reading of Chilean writers such as Pedro Lemebel and Rafael Gumucio, I aim to demonstrate how these authors depict everyday life stories of ordinary people and to what extent they contribute to the writing of a Chilean cultural history.

Author

• Barbara Andrea Castillo Buttinghausen, University of Bristol