Wacquez y sus precursores: infancia, género y nación

Authors

  • Lorena Amaro Castro Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Abstract

The novel Epifanía de una sombra (2000), by Mauricio Wacquez, constitutes a starting point for a new reading of two well-known Chilean intellectuals: Benjamín Subercaseaux and Luis Oyarzún. Just like these latter, Wacquez represents the childhood as a space of existential discovery and possibly, a critical perspective of the family scheme. Similarly to the young characters of Daniel. Niño de lluvia (1938), by Subercaseaux, and La infancia (1940) y Los días ocultos (1955), by Oyarzún, Santiago, the main character of Epifanía, offers a way of reading the formation of masculinity during the first half of the XXth Century in Chile, by proposing subversive aesthetic and gender/sexual imaginations that differ from the normalizing discourses constructed by political and social institutions.

Keywords:

Masculinities, Childhood, Chilean novel, Homoeroticism, Nation