Going and coming to the Other

Tamara Kamenszain’s Writing Between vates and poetisas

Abstract

This article seeks to examine some of the ways in which Tamara Kamenszain’s recent writing engages with the Other. This movement can initially be divided into two parts: on the one hand, it involves a distancing from certain grandiose forms of literature, associated with those she calls vates; on the other, it reveals an affinity with writers—primarily women, but also some men whom she labels antivates—who write from a place of smallness and with a minor tone. To explore this, the analysis draws from the last two works published by the Argentine author during her lifetime, Livros pequenos (Kamenszain [2020] 2021) and Garotas em tempos suspensos (Kamenszain [2021] 2022), placing them in dialogue with works by other authors such as Octavio Paz ([1972] 2013, [1981] 2014), Harold Bloom ([1973] 2002), Margo Glantz (1992), Sylvia Molloy (2010), Julia Kristeva (2011), and Paloma Vidal (2017). The reading is guided primarily by moments in Livros pequenos where these affinities and distances become apparent, accompanied by a rethinking of notions of literary filiation and influence. Thus, the article proposes that Kamenszain’s literature is constructed as a form of writing that does not close in on itself but rather opens up to the Other, existing only through its presence and constitution.