Hermanas de sangre (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 283 de este poema encomiamos animales, águilas y piedras enfurecidas. Las piedras, especialmente el canto rodado, es una figura que se repite en sus trabajos antologados en Pichka harauikuna: "... si / como la piedra redonda / no echan raÃ-ces..."/ "...muyru rumi jiña mana sapiyuq..."/ "As if a round stone / rootless...", representando, quizás, la constante emigración del pueblo a la ciudad. Se siente muy quechua el castellano de Dida Aguirre: "... iremos ya, / viajaremos ya / llevando tristeza / llevando pobreza hermana / de la mano / iremos / en turba / en masa...", asÃ- como también muy enfático en sus reivindicaciones. Aunque el libro tenga, principalmente , una función de divulgación y no de crÃ-tica, creemos que le hace falta una Introducción más amplia, que incluya los criterios de selección de los autores y de los poemas, asÃ- como opiniones crÃ-ticas de los últimos. Consideramos que es muy importante para los lectores conocer cómo se ha abordado la traducción a cada una de las lenguas y quién ha tenido la responsabilidad de realizarlas. La normalización de la versión en quechua es también una exigencia que se debió cumplir. La superaci ón de estas "faltas" le darÃ-a una base editorial más sólida y consistente al interesante libro que, sin duda, merece una gran difusión. Lydia Fossa University of Arizona Hermanas de sangre Tusquets, 1998 By Cristina Fernández Cubas Since Cristina Fernández Cubas made her literary debut in 1980 with the publication of her short story collection Mi hermana Elba, she has established herself as one of the most prominent female narrators of the post-Franco era. This first work and her subsequent books of short stories Los altillos de Brumal (1983), El ánguU del horror (1990), and Con Agatha en Estambul (1994), as well as her two novels to date, El año de Gracia (1985) and El columpio (1995), share an obsession with the mysterious and disquieting aspects of reality. Often making use of the fantastic or Gothic paradigms, Fernández Cubas's works set out to test the limits of fiction and subjectivity. Her characters typically find themselves living "on the boundary," struggling with psychic issues of self and otherness, unconscious fears and desires, repressed memories , and uncanny events that defy rational explanation. Fernández Cubas's first dramatic work, Hermanas de sangre, continues along the same terrain as her narrative fiction, albeit in a different genre. The psychological drama that unfolds in Hermanas de sangre is not unlike those of her narrative works, which are laden with an atmosphere of mystery and uncanniness. The play's plot and setting appropriately lend themselves to an exploration ofthe inner worlds of repression , memory, and self-discovery characteristic of Fernández Cubas's works: seven former internas gather together thirty-four years later in a private room of a restaurant in a reunion called forth by their fellow companion, Marga. Once the women are reunited, Marga, unbeknownst to the others , shows a home movie that recaptures the macabre scene ofthe murder of one of their absent companions, Clara, at the hands of her schoolmates, thus forcing the women to confront their collective guilt and complicity . Each character struggles with her own phantom ofthe past, be it fear, hate or 284 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies envy provoked by the eleven year-old Clara who has stolen the show away from the other girls in a theatrical representation; only then will the women understand retrospectively their motive for murder. What comes to the surface through the macabre encounter ofthe women is their collective unconscious, which has been repressed since the moment of Clara's murder , yet nevertheless drives each woman in her present life. Lali's memory lapses and Aurora, whose mental incapacitation forces her to regress permanently to the moment before Clara's death, constitute a testament to the power ofthe repressed unconscious. The sensation of the uncanny is generated when the group "nombra lo innombrable por primera vez" (102), when it exposes what has been unspeakable and should have remained hidden. The theme of the family secret (i...