After Exile: Writing the Latin American Diaspora by Amy K. Kaminsky (review)

clear that there is an absorbing issue ofpalimpsest, ventriloquism, and source, but it is no more than gestured toward and we are offand away into the next chapter. It doesn't help the analysis that limp connections are made such as "Oates's epigraphic use oflines from Campbell's translation [ofSt John of the Cross] introduces the notion that her stories carry some curious overall Iberian baggage" (79) or "this is the kind ofpoem that Fernando Pessoa might have written about the fading Portuguese presence in Lourenço Marquess African future .. . had he had the benefit, say, ofnot being himselfPortuguese" (93). Finally, after leading us through massed ranks ofquotations and enjoinders to make connections between them, the book finishes with no conclusion, which, after all, best befits its nature as an enthusiast's list, ¿fr Amy K. Kaminsky. After Exile: Writing the Latin American Diaspora. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1999. 189p. Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez University op California, Santa Barbara InAfterExile, Amy Kaminskyaddresses the literature ofexiles from Chile, Argentina , and Uruguay, writing in the United States, Sweden, Spain, Mexico, and France. Focusing on the relation of exile to space, the body, and language, Kaminsky couches her views in the works ofboth well-known, widely translated writers such as Luisa Valenzuela, José Donoso, Cristina Peri Rossi, and Mario Benedetti, and less-known authors such as José Leandro Urbina, Leonardo Rossiello, and Vlady Kociancich. However, because ofits global implications, this critical work is very accessible to scholars whose main interest would be other literatures of exile. Kaminsky provides the English translation to all the passages quoted; primarily targeting the non-Spanish speaker, her work is a focused introduction to the writing ofthese Latin American authors. The author's main thesis is the importance of the effect ofexile and its representation in the literature ofthese writers. She establishes the literary interpretation ofdeterritorialization, alienation, acculturation, and reterritorialization, often complicated processes which accompany exile and its aftermath. The author pays special attention to the instability ofexile and its repercussions on the concept ofnational identity. As the tide clearly states, Kaminsky's focus is the literature produced by exiles in foreign lands, bridging the gap from exile to diaspora. Exile is portrayed as a lived reality and, as such, Kaminsky's work is certainly engaging · SPRING 2000 ·:· ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW sr 119 AfterExile is divided into eight chapters which thematically address different aspects ofexile literature. In chapter one, the author establishes the notion ofexile in relation to that ofhome, nation, and homeland/hometown. Kaminsky defines exile in terms ofa physical process, a feeling ofloss and the assimilation of new families, newlanguages, newwork, and newways ofliving. She addresses the exile's sense ofidentity and sense ofexile as a u-topia, a no-place: after exile, the place and person that existed previously cease to exist. Chapter two examines the subject ofnational identity in terms ofthe nation itselfand the exile identity as beingtied to aparticular placewhere onebelonged. Kaminskydeariydefines exile as a forced separation and explores the question ofthe subject's sense ofidentity understood as both "physical-geographic and symbolic-political space" (23). The author addresses the "otherness" of both the exile that returns and the exile that chooses to remain. In chapter three Kaminsky charts the passage from exile to diaspora, and the pluri-faceted experience ofexile. The processes ofacculturation (movingalongaxes oftransition from space to place) and alienation (effected both internally by keeping oneselfapart and externally by being perceived as "other" or not at all) are the main focus ofthis part ofthe analysis. It is interesting to note that Kaminsky includes die notion ofcyberspace and cyber-communication into her discussion ofexile, stating that "the technologies ofrapid communication do not repair the damage ofexile. They merely have the capacity to make connection possible despite distance" (46). In chapter four the author turns to the mutual constitution oflanguage and space, linked by analogy and practice to the experience ofexile and its aftermath. Specific examples, such as the language associated widi food and the preparation ofraw ingredients illustrate the author's thesis that language is a means to establish as well as to recover a sense ofplace. Kaminsky also refers to the relationship ofthe writer to his/her audience and exile as...