Women’s Voices in Contemporary Peruvian Literature Year of Peru Lecture Series (2011-2012)

For centuries, Peruvian literature–with few exceptions, which has generally been male-dominated–has resisted the open treatment of female sexuality and eroticism as natural. Not until the end of the 1970s did women begin to make their own voices heard in this realm. Now, a group of female poets is exploring the role of women as not only the object of desire, but also the subject of desire who seeks to fulfill her own satisfaction. Consequently, they have developed literary innovations that reveal an erotic thematic as they confront their political, economic, and domestic positions in Peruvian society–whether dealing with their own bodies in particular, or those of other women in general.

This presentation will explore their attitudes toward female sexuality in its diverse manifestations, and it will investigate the relationship between sexual conduct vis-a-vis the power structure as well as the socio-cultural norms that impede the total development of Peruvian women. Moreover, it will offer an overview of similarities and differences among these writers’ works and why they are considered the most representatively innovative of this genre.