Fantasies of the feminine

the long version

Silvina Ocampo (1903-93) recently has been described as "surely one of the ten best writers writing in Spanish today" (Alberto Manguel, ed. Other Fires, 1986). Sister of Victoria Ocampo, wife of Adolfo Bioy Casares, her early collaborations with Jorge Luis Borges situate her within the inner circle of the most exciting intellectual ferment of her time. And yet she has remained an enigmatic figure. Among other questions that this study considers is why has this writer, so central to the creative "boom" of Latin American literature, been relatively understudied by contemporary critics? More specifically, why has this great woman writer been almost completely left out of feminist discourse regarding Latin American literature? In order to address these questions and to better understand Ocampo's work, the analysis sustains an extended dialogue between her short fiction and current Euro-American feminist theory. While the analysis is intended primarily for scholars interested in Latin American authors, every effort has been made to facilitate a reading by the non-specialist.