Against Borges

The four writers of this study – Norah Lange, Silvina Ocampo, Estela Canto and Silvina Bullrich – are rarely considered together. Each, however, made their literary start within the close-knit circles dominated by Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires in the mid-twentieth century. The title of the book plays with the double meaning of the word ‘against’ – signifying ‘opposed’ or ‘resistant’, but also ‘touching’ or ‘supported by’. In each case, the four writers benefited from early support from Borges, before eventually finding their own voices different from his as well as from each other’s. These writers struggled as much as their nineteenth-century counterparts to find ways to represent in fiction a particularly feminine subjectivity, and this study recognises their similarities as well as their originality. Most importantly, it seeks to undo misperceptions about these writers that have persisted to the present day, particularly regarding their individual paths through the fraught politics of Argentina’s twentieth century.