The Lesbian and the Literary Tradition in Argentina: Monte de Venus as Foundational Text Authors Laura A. Arnés Universidad de Buenos Aires, IIEGE/CONICET Keywords: Reina Roffé, Monte de Venus, twentieth-century Argentinean literature, lesbian voice, queer tradition Abstract The following article stands on two hypotheses: 1) In 1970s Argentina, a number of texts that introduced "new" subjectivities and new political expressions began to appear; 2) the literary and cultural studies of homosexuality have kept lesbian figurations next to the place of the unthinkable/un-thought of. This article suggests that Reina Roffé's long forgotten novel Monte de Venus (1976) is foundational when considering the possibility of a queer literary tradition in Argentina. It pays special attention to the ways in which the text constructs a lesbian voice and it suggests that Monte de Venus (in)augur(ate)s a future for this voice. In addition, this paper will analyze the novel as a key text that establishes bonds with other contemporary narratives, in order to draw an emergent and impassioned lesbian cartography. Downloads PDF (Català) Issue No. 17 (2011): Queerencias. Literaturas hispánicas y estudios LGBTQ Section Dossier License The Author retains ownership of the copyright in this article, unless the opposite is expressed, and all rights not expressly granted in this agreement, including the nonexclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, and display the article in print or electronic form, and grants, Lectora: revista de dones i textualitat the exclusive rights to print publication of the Article for a period beginning when this Agreement is executed and ending twelve (12) months after the first publicaton of the work in this Journal. After this time, the work will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license, by which the article must be credited to the Author and the Journal be credited as first place of publication. Beginning twelve (12) months after the article´s first publication, the Author is free to enter in seperate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the work as published in this journal. The Author is encouraged to post the work online (eg in institutional or subject repositories, or on their website) after the exclusivity period of twelve (12) months has expired, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as a greater citation of the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
