An introduction to the study of exile in Cristina Peri Rossi's poetry

Abstract

This text is an introduction to the study of historical exile in the Uruguayan Cristina Peri Rossi’s poetry work. Peri Rossi (Montevideo, 1941) had to leave her homeland for political reasons in 1973 and though in 1985 the didactorship ended, she never returned to Uruguay. The article is divided in three parts. The first one is focused on making a reflection about exile, which is approached and thought as a vital process signed by the split generated in the individual with a clear emphasis on the particular case of Cristina Peri Rossi. The second part shows the results of the search for key aspects of Peri Rossi’s poetry work previous to exile in order to evaluate the impact of such an event in the evolution of her writing. The third and final part of the text is dedicated to the analysis of Estado de exilio, which was the first book of poems written by the author after exile, though it was not published until 2003. Estado de exilio is a very important book to understand the effect of historical exile in Cristina Peri Rossi’s literary voice. In order to address its reading, we have used the works of Leon and Rebeca Grinberg about migration and exile with a particular attention to the three periods that, attending to their studies, the exiled goes through.