Australian National University, Allan Barton Forum
Presented by the Australian National Centre for Latin American Studies and Embassy of the Argentine Republic, Australia
After the Latin American boom during the sixties and seventies, new literatures on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere have been confronted with a different horizon. The world has changed and the position of books as a cultural and artistic support has changed as well. But Latin America and Argentina in particular are trying to redefine their position drawing on their own rich tradition. In parallel, new perspectives in the linguistic sphere had led to discussions about Spanish as a world language. Latin America and Spain are debating right now how to share this linguistic space.
In this context, talk focused on Mariana Dimópulos’ All My Goodbyes and the tradition of the Argentinian novel. All My Goodbyes is a novel told in overlapping vignettes, which follow the travels of a young Argentinian woman across Europe (Málaga, Madrid, Heidelberg, Berlin) and back to Argentina (Buenos Aires, Patagonia) as she flees from situation to situation, job to job, and relationship to relationship. The novel thinks about spaces, differences and the relation between north and south. Its structure invites to reflect some issues of the contemporary restlessness. In addition, the talk focused on the present literary scenario in Argentina, where independent publishing houses are flourishing; editing books is now considered as an act of cultural resistance. On the other hand, All My Goodbyes shows us an interesting case of translation and intercultural exchange between Argentina and Australia.