María Elena Walsh and the Art of Subversive Children’s Literature

María Elena Walsh reinvented the genre of children’s literature in Argentina. Writing under a series of repressive governments, Walsh exploited the perceived innocence of children’s literature, utilizing it as a conduit to criticize authority, while never abandoning her young readers. In her novel Dailan Kifki, the young, female protagonist is the sole voice of reason—a tribute to Louis Carroll’s Alice—who provide young readers with new ways of perceiving the world.