Torres_latin Canadian Exile

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Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

Writings of the Latin-Canadian ExileAuthor(s): LUIS TORRESSource: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 26, No. 1/2, ESTUDIOS EN HONOR AMARIO J. VALDÉS (Otoño 2001 / Invierno 2002), pp. 179-198Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios HispánicosStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27763762 .

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LUISTORRES

Writings of the Latin-Canadian Exile*

En este rt?culo obre la escritura el exiliado nosproponemos elaboraruna posici?nalternativa a aqu?lla que transforma l exilio en un sitiode disidencia -

espaciodeseado de libertado estado necesariopara la creatividad.Para ello nos concentra

mos en elpathos del exilioy enalgunas de lasmanifestacionesde sentimientos ue

surgende esa experiencia traum?tica. En el desarrollo del estudio, hacemos un

recorrido omeropor la etimolog?ade lapalabra ypor dos de sus representacionescan?nicas. Luego enfrentamoslas nociones de espacio y tiempoy c?mo ?stas son

desestabilizadas en la obra de varios escritores y escritoras latino-canadienses. Un

aspecto centralde nuestroproyectoes elde recuperarla liminalidad del exilio ante

los embates de una cr?ticaque tiende a silenciar los traumas

impl?citos

en esta

condici?n.

One of themajor claimsmade bymany writers and theoristsof literature s that

writing and the creativity it implies is apposite to exile. JuliaKristeva, for

example, sees exile as a non-alienating experience, one that liberates the

individual from theconstraintsof everyday ife nd the totalizationsof dominant

discourses. In her 1977article "ANew Type of Intellectual: The Dissident," she

writes:

Our present age is one of exile. How can one avoid sinking into the mire of common

sense, ifnot by becoming a stranger to one's own country, language, sex and identity?

Writing is impossible without some kind of exile.

Exile is already in itself a form of dissidence, since it involves uprooting oneself from

a family, a country or a language. (298)

*I wish to acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Brian Gill and Estelle

Dansereau, colleaguesin the

Departmentof

French,Italian and

Spanish, Universityof

Calgary, and also to express my admiration of themany Latin-Canadian writers who have

given me the pleasure of their work over the years.

revista canadiense de estudios hisp?nicos Vol XXVI, 1-2 Oto?o / Invierno 2001-2002



180

It isnot difficultto see the strategicmove made byKristeva to transformexile

intoa "necessary" condition for the intellectual,appropriating the liminality f

banishment while making it into a willed action. We will come back to this

conceptualization lateron in this essay; suffice tto say fornow thatKristeva's

notion isone thatwe will oppose bybringing into thediscussion thepathos of

exile.BeforeKristeva, in theLatin-American tradition,theChilean novelist Jos?Donoso appeals to a similarbelief inhisHistoria personal del boom (1970),where

he uses thewords "exilio voluntario" in relation to thewriters of the sixtieswho

wrote theirmajor works in self-imposed exile inEurope. Donoso was also of the

opinion that geographical and cultural distance was a good antidote to theconservative traditions of Chilean society.He lived inSpain foralmost twenty

years and published therehismost importantnovel,El obscenop?jaro de la noche

(1970).Roberto Gonz?lez Echevarr?a in"Literature and Exile: Carpentier's 'Rightof

Sanctuary'" writes that the existential dimension of exile, similar to that

underlying theposition of thewriters of the sixties,could be integrated in the

discourses ofmodernity "within thegeneral theme of alienation thatrunsacross

all post-Romantic literature the feelingof not belonging to one's place and

time,ofhaving

been torn

awayfroma betterworld and

epoch"(126).Thus, exile

becomes universalized ina representation thatremindsus of another universal:

the expulsion from Eden. We are all exiles sincewe are far from grace and

happiness. Another aspect elaborated inGonz?lez Echevarr?a's studyof "Rightof Sanctuary" is theone concerning exile as a literary onvention:

...what "Right of Sanctuary" demystifies is the notion that there is a natural link between

writing and exile. Exile itself, so the story seems to tell us, is a convention, a literary

artifice that does not afford the kind of radical change with which fictions invest it. It does

not furnish, in other words, a truly distinct perspective, nor can it be taken as a

transcendental state that offers aspecial, privileged

vision.(129)

Though I concur with Gonz?lez Echevarr?a's idea that there is no necessaryconnection "betweenwriting and exile," I do not share the emphasis given to

exile as a literaryconvention, nor do I accept the idea that exile, inworks of

fiction, cannot offera distinct vision of human experience. "Transcendental

state" and "privileged vision" are charged concepts,which arehard todefine if

one isnot aware of the circumstances of thosewho claim tohave them.On the

otherhand, itseems tome thatwe should not exclude such claims on thebasis

of our own particular positions without the danger of creating another

transcendentalstandpoint. Ironically, arpentier's story n exile does furnishthecriticwith a number of insights into thenature ofdisplacement and "the sense

of timelessness" (Gonz?lez Echevarr?a 133), insightsthatare inspired (and Iuse

thewords advisedly) on the "artifices" of exile.Moreover, thedeconstructive





182

tohis previous use of theword exile inorder toposit thedilemma ofpoliticalexile. In the 1983edition ofHistoria personal he states:

Ser?a necesario aclarar que desde la ?ptica de hoy los escritores del boom, pese a que us?

la palabra exilio en relaci?n con ellos y su recreaci?n de sus espacios nativos desde fuera

de sus pa?ses de origen, no eran propiamente hablando exiliados, ni su literatura fue una

literatura del exilio. Es s?lo a partir de la d?cada del 70, cuando el exilio se ha convertido

en algo esencialmente pol?tico, que se puede hablar de una literatura escrita en el exilio

y que encarna el exilio, cuando los autores ya no pueden regresar a sus pa?ses y se origina

as? una literatura de m?s rabia ym?s activismo ym?s dolor con relaci?n a este tema que

ladefine. (148)

Although exile has been an historical feature of political life inLatin-America

since Independence, it isonly in the last thirtyyears that ithas become a form

ofmassive punishment. The militarization and violent transformationof our

societies in the sixties and seventies resulted in the forced exile of thousands of

people, transformingthe romanticdesire ofvoluntary exile intoa sadnecessity.As I have described so far, therehas been an appropriation of the exile's

experiencein

modern and postmodern discourse which has implieda

redefinition f theword and has led in turntoa formofuniversalization thathas

itsroots among thecynics and stoicsof antiquity.To be clear, Ido notwant to

deny that in some caseswhat startedas a "voluntary exile,"as happened to Julio

Cort?zar, in factbecame a formof exile similar to that ofmany other Latin

Americans in the seventies and eighties.2The feelingof alienation inmodern

societycould also havemany of thesamemanifestations as exile,but Iwould like

to stress itsdifferentroots. It isboth theaesthetic transformation of exile intoa

desiredmode ofbeing, achieved through theexclusion of theexperience of exile

as punishment, and themarginalization of itsexpressions by concentratingon

literary onventionswhich I seek tooppose. Against these tendencies in literarycriticism, hope tohelp recoverthemeanings of exile as an historical experience,with itspathos of trauma, loss,despair and the constant struggleforhappiness.

Thus, in this articlemy interest iesnot somuch in thedevelopments I have

identified in theprevious pages, but in the pathos of exile represented in the

experiences andwritings of thegroup discovered byDonoso in 1983. o providea background forthisdiscussion, Iwill, first f all, explore theetymologyof exile

to show how thepathos ofphysical and psychological sufferingsalreadypresentin the root of theword. Then, Iwill brieflyconsider two canonical representations of thepathos of exile at the social and individual level: exile in theBook of

Lamentations and inOvid's Tristia. In the second part of thisessay, Iwill referto theworks of severalLatin-Canadian writers, a corpus chosen not only for its

refined rticulation of the notion of exile,but also because itrepresents case of



183

marginalization which seems toparallel, at the levelof reception and commen

tary,themarginality of its characters.

Iwill focusmy discussion on at leasttwo centralelements of thewritingof the

exiled person: the notions of space and time.One consequence of the crisis

affectingthese coordinates is that of thequestioning of identity s somethingfixed and attached to a place. In fact, the instabilityof the space/timedimen

sions, orwhat could be called thechronotope of exile, is, in thecase of theexile,

intrinsically elatedtoproblems ofpersonal and collective identity n thecontext

of individual and social disintegration.The "liminal" conditions createdby the

uprooting from the familiar spaces of everyday life nd byhaving been throwninto a time that is culturally foreign, leads to thedecentring of identity nd to

socialmarginality. Inmy conclusion, Iwill come back to the appropriation of

exile by postmodern discourse, although thewhole thrustofmy argument,by

concentrating on thepathos of exile, is to show the limitations of thatposition.Exile as dissidence, inmy opinion, isa transformation that is achieved only bythe "forgetting" f thetraumasand suffering hatunderlies theexperienceof the

banished. Thus, against the sanitizingof exile, Iwill attempt to follow thepathosthat haunts thewritings of the Latin exiles in theCanadian context.

Inlooking

at theetymology

of theword exile, one can find some clear

indications of thepathos that isattached to theword, theverycondition that is

bracketed by the universalizing intentions of modern and postmoderndiscourses. According to JoanCorominas' Diccionario Cr?ticoEtimol?gico de la

Lengua Castellana, theSpanishword "exilio" originates in theCatalan "exili" and

the French "exil,"which, in turn,were taken from the "latin exsilum 'destierro',derivado de 'exsilire' 'saltar fuera'" (129). In theOxfordEnglishDictionary exile

isdescribed as a "state ofbanishment," but italso has amore physical sense of

"devastation, destruction" (540). According to the same dictionary, in a more

archaic but telling signification, the word exile has themeaning of "being

assumed to have been 'disembowelled'" (541). The notion of territorialbanishment is clearlypresent in the root of theword "exile." The particle "ex,means 'out' and the form sal (from the Sanskrit: sar- to go) ... is the root of

salire, to leap" (540). InWebster'sNew World Dictionary the definition of the

form "iel or al" (510)points directlyto thepsychological condition of theexile:

"towander aimlessly" (510).The same dictionary explains that thismeaning is

"akin to theGreek word alaomai, Iwander, roam, am banished" (510).Aswe will

see, the tropology of exile not only crosses the path ofmetaphor but it also

reaches into the terrainof the untold experiences of exile.

"To wander aimlessly," "to have been 'disembowelled,'" these are two

dimensions of exile thatrelate to the existential andmore physical and painfulaspect of the condition. Language itself,s one can gather from thesedefinitions

and from the works of exiled writers, cannot ."speak" of exile except by a



184

metaphorical detour. Robert Edwards, in his article "Exile, Self, and Society,"comments on this "supplementary":

We might speak superficially of "undergoing exile," but language inevitably carries us

toward registering the feelings of suffering and enduring displacement from one's

"home." Only by awilful suppression ofmetaphor can we speak of "experiencing exile."

Otherwise language continues to seek forceful expression, as in one's being driven,

thrown, or cast into exile. (15)

This situation, inwhich we confront the limitationsof the literal, sakin to thatcriticalexperiencewhich languagedesires toname but can only say inan indirect

manner: pain. The previous definitions are pointing at the traumas and

sufferingswhich cannot be expressed in literal language. This is exactly the

experience of the "body inpain," which according to Elaine Scarry, seems to

revertto an otherness of language- the criesofpain thatcannot be articulated

in the logicsofone's idiom.3There is,then,an important setof referencesto the

traumas and thepathos of suffering n the definitions of exile.Moreover, these

references all attentionto the limits f literallanguage and to the imaginary leapinmetaphor

onemust make to

speakof the condition. Its relation to the

"bodyinpain" iscentral foran understanding of the traumas involved inexile and for

an approximation to the undecidable in that situation - thatuntransferable

experiencewhich theChilean-Canadian writerCarmen Rodriguez calls, inone

ofher short stories,"el agujero negro," la "nada" ("El agujero negro" 67).In addition, themodern imaginary has been influenced by at least two

important representations of exile: theBabylonian captivityof the Jews n the

fifth enturybefore theChristian era and the literaryrepresentationof exile in

theworks of the Roman poet Ovid,4 particularly in the elegies of the Tristia.

Concerning thehistorical exileof theJews e read inA ShortHistory ofJudaism:

Exile (in Hebrew "galut") is a fundamental concept for the Jews. Throughout their long

history, from the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 586 bce, probably themajority of

the community has lived in exile. The Babylonian exile itself officially ended when

Babylonia was conquered by Persia; the Persians had a different attitude towards

conquered people and allowed the Jews to return toCanaan in 538 bce. (Cohn-Sherbok

31)

The image of the "wandering Jew" is also a dominant presence in the social

imaginaryas is thefateof theSephardim in theHispanic world. The exile of the

Jews, ith its related conditions ofpersonal decentring and socialdisintegration,isdescribed inthebook ofLamentations: "How lonely sitsthecitythatwas full

of people ... Judahhas gone into exile because of affliction ... she dwells now

among thenations, but finds no restingplace" (quoted inCohn-Sherbok 30).



185

The recurrentimages in thisbiblical text reofdespair and chaos brought about

by the traumas of exile, the result of a world torn apart and destroyed by

separation fromwhat were the familiar spaces of everyday life.

This is alsowhat binds Ovid's elegiac poetry in theTristia.Ovid was expelled

by the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar inad 8 towhat the poet calls "this

horrible region" (60), the "Barbarian soil" (61) inTomis, at theveryborders of

theempire. InOvid's work we see a transformationof the human brotherhood

of the stoicsand of the indifferencef thecynics intothepoetic expression of the

sorrowsof the

onewho has lost

hismotherland. Exile,

inhiscase,

isa borderline

condition, a liminal state,where the signs of nature are symbols not of an

essential belonging of the individual to theworld but of separation from the

familiar. It is thebook itselfthat inOvid becomes a substitute for thepoet, his

double,which in itsmateriality can reach the land and audience fromwhich the

author is separated. The book is inmany ways the "pharmacos" and theproxyused by thepoet to give a positive twistto thepain of exile:

Little ook, Idon'tbegrudge it;you'llgo to theCitywithoutme,

Ay, to the place where your master isn't permitted to go

Off with you, but in dishevelled dress as is proper for exiles;

Unhappy one, wear the clothes that befit my miserable state. (1)

Let us be clear at thispoint: theTristia and the book of Lamentations are both

representationsof Guill?n's "la crisispsicosocial o ... la fragmentaci?n ?ntima

del exiliado" (38-39).While giving testimony,these books provide a cathartic

release that their readers can share. Furthermore,both canonical textsoffera

contrasting view which, from their own temporalities, bring to light the

constraints imposed on thevicissitudes of exileby thedesire tomake it, in the

present time, into a site of freedom and imagination, a necessary space for

creativity.

The pathos and the instrumentality f thebook for thewriter,by becomingthepoet's other in the case ofOvid, aswell as themarks of sufferingin the

etymologyof theword exile, constitute an importantfield of reference foran

understanding of thewritings of Latin exiles inCanada. Here, to establish the

theoreticalbasis of the connection in timeof suchdistant expressions, I turn to

Guill?n's concept of "interhistoricidad." For Guill?n, this concept allows an

examination of "las distintas respuestas surgidas en diferentes per?odos- no

necesariamente

pr?ximos,

ni sucesivos, ni

progresivos

- a un mismo campo de

experiencia" (13).The linking in time of the "answers" to exile, conceptualizedin "la interhistoricidad,"illuminatespast experiences butmore importantlyfor

us the dilemmas of thepresent.



186

In turning to the literary roduction of theLatin writer inCanada, Iwish to

stress the centralityof feelings in theirwork, not only those of pain broughtabout by trauma,but also theconflictingfeelings involved in the struggletofind

happiness. As I indicatedbefore, a consideration of trauma and suffering ringsinto theopen the shortcomings of the transformation of exile intodissidence,

particularlybecause thismove isachieved by the erasure of themanifestations

of feelings, such as pain, suffering, oss, despair, happiness-

feelings already

prominent in the definitions of exile aswell as in itspoignant metaphors and in

its canonical literaryrepresentations.

Hence, my emphasis will be on the fact that the alienated relation with theworld that leads todecentring and disintegration in the experience of theexile

is the result of personal and collective traumas sufferedin thepast and in the

moment of forced "transplantation." Trauma is the reasonwhy thewriting of

theexile is inmany ways a formof therapeuticwriting, a releaseof the self n the

projections of the text,which leads to anagnorisis, an instancewhen the reader

recognizes in representationhis or her own experience of theworld. It is in this

recognition that thepathos of exile crosses thepersonal boundaries of subjectiv

ity obecome awork of the imaginationtobe sharedwith others.But one should

not confuse the

decentringof

identity

nd the

separationbetween the

subjectand theworld with that strand of alienation identifiedbyGonz?lez Echevarr?a

inpost-Romantic literature; nforcedexilewe are confrontedwith an alienation

rootednot on somethingwilled or desired but with the crisisof awide spectrumof feelingsdue to the traumas in the life f the individual and society.

I am aware thatmy language isapproaching thequicksands of criticism.To

speak of feelings, suffering, appiness or just life in literarystudies ispossibly

opening my argument to an accusation of psychologism, and probably that

would be the least ofmy sins.But, be that s itmay, I agreewith Robert Edwards

when he points at thedescriptive and creative capacity of exiles'writings: "To

some extent change is implicit inanypoetic vision, for themutual translationsof art and experience reconceived both the world and the possibilities of

expressing it... Literature concernedwith banishment and flightcontainswithin

itself ertain remedies of estrangement: it isnever enough merely to record loss"

(23).Of course, in the literary xpansion ofwhat surrounds us I includehuman

emotions, those originating during difficulttimes or at times of tranquillity.agree thatany creative texthas thepotential to redescribe reality, r "forputtinginto play" and expanding the process ofwhat Mario J.Vald?s calls "world

making" (PhenomenologicalHermeneutics 65). Exile itself is not a privileged

territory orthe representationsof feelingsand traumas, as testimonialwriting

from Latin-America has shown, but, nonetheless, theworlds of the exile havesomething to tellus about the human condition. If,according toVald?s, the

dialectics of appropriation, that is,the textualdistancing and theeffort o reduce

it in reception, "is primarily theprojection of aworld, a proposal of amode of



187

being in theworld, that the textdiscloses" (70), then thewriting of the exile is

not somuch a proposal forbeing, as desired by some, but theopening up of a

world which fromthemargins istellingus thehistoryof theconditions of life t

theborder, in the in-between of cultures, at the time of the breaking up of

communities by the local strugglesforhegemony and,more recently, y the so

called process of globalization.In his studyof exile,Claudio Guill?n speaks ofOvid's Tristia as a book where

"el exilio, primordialmente cultural,viene a significar la inanidad del espacio

p?blico, la inutilidad del tiempo, la futilidad de las cosas pr?ximas ypalpables"

(34). Exile literature dramatizes the fact that the sense of time cannot beseparated fromspace and that inmany cases thischronotope of the subject is in

disarray.This isbecause in thewriting of theexile, thepast and the signsof the

other space (theone left ehind) tend tocome to the surface inorder tounsettle

the relationship of the subjectwith itself nd theworld. The definition of the

exileprovided byMichael Seidel inExile and the arrative Imagination istellingin this respect. For Seidel, "an exile is someone who inhabits one place and

remembers or projects the reality f another" (ix).

Thus, on the surface,thewritingof theexilemight give a sense ofprogressionfrom trauma and sufferingto healing and integration, but thismovement

forward isnothing but an illusion. There isno Bildunsgroman in thewriting ofexile; although theplay of time isof itsessence.The appearance of a teleologicaltime on the surface of the text is shattered by the conflicts in the subjectconsciousness which originate in thediscordant conjunction of at least three

temporalities: a timepastwith itswide arrayofmemories and traumas, a time

intowhich he/she is thrown,namely thepresent time,where the subject is torn

by the conflicting feelingsof her/hisdecentred identity in the land of asylum,and, of course, a future time inwhich one will still have to deal with the

experiences of thepast. If thepast isalready a fiction,however traumatic itmay

be, and thepresent isbroken into thediscrepancy of several culturallydifferent

times, nd the futureisa timeof struggleforsome kind of redemption, then therelation of time and subject is one inwhich time seems to turn against the

individual tobreak up the certainties thathave constituted his or her integrity.But, as we will see later,not all is lost in this rift ith time. Some writerswill

emphasize the fissurewhile otherswill trytomend it.

The work of the Spaniard Jes?sL?pez Pacheco is rich in examples of the

instability f timeand space and of thecondition of transplantation sufferedbythe exile, a condition inwhich the images of thepast come to the surface to

disrupt thepresent. This is the case of thepoem entitled "Beingwhere you'renot," fromhis book PoeticAsylum.PoemsWritten inCanada 1968-1990:

Being where you are not

and not being where you live.



188

Opening your eyes without seeingor seeing what doesn't matter.

Hearing a smell from old times,

and on the skin, feeling the voice

of an air that doesn't enfold you.

Resisting nostalgia, that

turbid ice ofexile. (45)

Here, being ispresented as a decentred voice whose attributesof sight,hearingand smell are confused by the break in the relation between itselfand the

surroundingworld. In thispoem, theeccentricityof the subject isby nomeans

cheerful,but isnot hopeless either.Memories come flowing into thepresent to

twist the real aswell as the senses in the transferences f synaesthesiabut, at the

same time,memories cannot be compartmentalized or forgotten; theygive life

to textualproduction. Therefore, for theexile, to live thepresentbecomes an act

of resisting hepossible transformation f longing intomelancholia, a pathological condition.5 By the same token,writing forL?pez Pacheco, as we saw also in

the case ofOvid, offersameans of creative release in theprojection of aworld

where the logicsof everyday life o not apply, although itspoetic oddities allows

for reflection.

Turning toanother example, it is this"floating"past that isat the rootof the

actions of theArgentinean characters inAlbertoManguel's novel News From a

ForeignCountryCame. These refugeesof the "dirtywar" are dominated by the

memory of past experiences, the torture inflictedon them and their families.

Their present situation inQuebec is toplan and find themeans to take revenge,in a future action, by killing a French officerwho taught theArgentinean

military the torturetechniques used by the French inAlgiers. The factthattheyfail and kill the officer'swife instead, a person who had escaped into insanityafterlearningofher husband's work as a torturer,nlyunderlines thenonsensi

cal condition of the exile: that evenwhen the exile has a plan and a clearobjective in life,she or he is stillout of stepwith the real. Time in the future,

then, is also amatter of thepast for these exiles.

Other writers,while recognizing the traumas of thepast, seek some formof

healing by reconnecting the ties thatbind generations- a process signifyingthe

reconstruction of the continuityof time. In theirwork, theyattempt tobringinto the open the silenced voices of predecessors by creating relations of

solidaritywith the victims of past political processes. This creative form of

healing iswhat Carmen Rodriguez achieves in the stories ofDe cuerpo entero

(1997). In "Una dieta balanceada: risasy llanto en la casa del aire," forexample,

we find an ethics grounded in the privileging ofmemory over forgetting.

Memory is alive and the body is transformed into a body that remembers:

"Tengo una mente y un cuerpo entero con los cuales recordar. El olvido no es

una opci?n" (23). Solidaritywith theother, theprisoner, the victim of torture,



189

the exile, is a recurrent theme inRodriguez's work, and it is in solidarity and

active remembrance that thepain of trauma isgiven direction and the sorrows

of exile are put to the testby a search forhappiness.Another reworking f time intoan instrument fhealing is thepoetryofNela

Rio in T?nel de proa verde. In this book, time past, the time of prison and

torture, s transformedintoa timeofpresence, a presentwhich is concretized in

theconjunction of the horizon of the text nd reader; it isa new, imagined time

which brings to the fore the forgotten nd silenced voices ofwomen prisonersand exiles. In her poems, Nela Rio reveals the pitfalls of exclusion while

privileging themateriality ofpresence in the sufferingnd reflectivebody of thevictim:

T?nel de proa verde es el resultado de una necesidad de llenar un vac?o que sent? cuando

particip?, como persona interesada y no como escritora, en un congreso sobre Escritores

yDerechos Humanos. El d?a de la inauguraci?n en el escenario se hab?an instalado ocho

sillas, cada una de ellas con el nombre de un escritor, prisionero de conciencia en pa?ses

bajo dictaduras. Para mi gran sorpresa y angustia, ni uno de los nombres era uno de

mujer. Habiendo conocido a escritoras que hab?an sufrido encierro y tortura bajo

sistemas represivos, la ausencia fue a?n m?s dram?tica para m?. ("Palabras de la autora"

12)

For her, thebook becomes a sitewhich hopefullywill fill in that absence. InRio's

work the continuity of poetry, itsown imagined textual time, allows for the

creation of a strongsense of solidarity nd communitywith theexcluded other.

The traumatic past of prison and torture,which speak to the present in the

mediation of images andmetaphors, ischaracterized lateron in thebook as "el

recuerdo que dignifica lamemoria del dolor" ("xxvn" 78). Remembrance, the

flowingofpastmemories intothepresent,however traumatic itmay be, is in this

bookanecessary

actwhich allows

areconnection of thewriter and the readerwith themarginalized.

These are some of theways inwhich what Guill?n calls "la inutilidad del

tiempo" (34) is treated in thewritings of the Latin exile.Obviously, we have

chosen tomove from themore negative dilemmas of the poetic subject in

relation to time inL?pez Pacheco andManguel to themore positiveview of time

inRodriguez and Rio. Nonetheless, my impression is that the first attitude is

more pervasive (aswell as "perverse") inmost diasporic authors. I am thinking,for example, of Cobro revertido 1992) by Leandro Urbina and of the strangenarrative in e chacharasy largavistas 1993)by Jorge tcheverry.These are two

novelswhere the authors explore the idea of exile as a personal and social failure.InUrbina, on the one hand, thepast

- in the image and remembrance of the

dominantmother and the idealizedwomen (thegirlfriend isappeared inChile)-

constantlyhaunts the life f thecharacter;Chilean politics isalso present but



190

isnot themain reason forthe character's incapacity togivedirection tohis life.

The end result is a portrayalwhich depicts a subject unable (and unwilling, it

seems) to escape thepast thathaunts his present.The incapacitytoheal and givesense to life leads "el soci?logo" to a kind of cultural selfdestruction (bybeingattacked by anotherChilean). On theother hand, inEtcheverry the trauma of

the past and the struggle fordemocracy inChile has become just a blurred

memory. InDe chacharas y largavistas, e are dealingwith a characterwho has

clearly failed to integrateand remains evenmore marginal after thewinds of

Canadian solidaritywith Chile have faded. The novel is inmany ways the

representationof a "marginal existence,"where theexiled person isno longerofinterest oothers (Milbauer 13).6 he "largavista,"thatoptical instrumentwhich

mediates our imagesof theworld by bringing closerwhat isfar, san appropriate

object-symbol that speaks of the borderline condition of the subject in this

novel. In both narratives discussed above, theprogression of timedoes not yield

integrationnor a positive resolutionof theconflictsaffecting hecharacters.The

absurd end of the protagonist inCobro revertido is a good example of the

continuous riftbetween the subject and the signs of theworld and of the

"perverse" representation of the exile as a failure.The protagonist of thenovel

is attacked by a Chilean man whom he does not recognize;worst of all, but

symbolicof thealienation, in thenoise of the festivities el soci?logo" isnot evenable to identify he language of his attackersuntil it is too late,a languagewhich

the narrator calls the "perfecto chileno" (198) spoken by thewoman the

character was trying to seduce.

Temporality, in the case of the exile, is a liminal time where "difference"

becomes central to the experiences of the subject,but this isnot a Derridean

diff?rance,where the idea of postponement seems to involve the playful

displacement of the signifier nd thewillful erasureofmeaning. This isa time of

changewhere difference iscostly to the subjectof consciousness. Let us be clear,

difference -

beingother, the

processof

decentring,the tension between

temporalitiesand spaces, thebreaking of the "natural" relation to signs- isnot

an unending flow of "jouissance" here, but an image ofpain and of the textual

struggle to give it form and direction. Trapped in thevortexes of conflicting

times,the subject of consciousness cannot arrest its low; even timepast cannot

be frozenor put to restby futureactions, as inManguel's novelwhere thepastcomes to live in thepresent ofvengeance and in thefutureof failure.

In other cases, evenwhen thepast seems to speak to thepresent,when the

textdisplays itstherapeutic power and lends its images to serveas example, it is

with a dynamism thatnever allows reification r theforgetting f differenceand

interpretation n themovement ofhistory.Rodriguez and Rio not only attemptto explore the territories f theforgotten r the silenced spaces of the other (notthe "heroic" figures of history but the unknown forwhom there are no

monuments), they offer their readers what Mario J.Vald?s would call a



191

remembrance that"has been narrativized" in the "fusion of islands ofmemories"

(Hermeneutics ofPoetic Sense 43)which thedominant discourse, be itpoliticalor academic, tries to erase. Their use of difference is a "painful" creative

endeavour which helps to startbuilding happiness in thecontextofdespair. But

the suturingof the tearingof time is always a struggle as themore "perverse"

representations of the exile's dilemmas show inUrbina and Etcheverry.Theirs

isaworld that dramatizes thataspect ofmodern lifewhich academic discourse

hasmarginalized by itsfixationwith thecanonical and itsteleological logics of

investment and return: I am speaking of thedestruction of community and of

the erasure of the feelings involved in theprocess of globalization, and,muchcloser to us, of themarginality of the exiled subject in the "centre" of the

"global."

If time is fluctuating and the past seems to emerge at the surface of the

present todisrupt the search forhappiness, space- and we are thinkingof the

more pedestrian but vital space of everyday life isanother notion thatcannot

be demarcated by definitive borders or by a totalizing knowledge which wouldsave the exile frommisreading the signsof his or hernew environment. Past time

and the territories fpast experiences come toproblematize presentboundaries,aswe saw exemplified inL?pez Pacheco's poem. The writing of the exile remains

problematic in that it isalways out of stepwith the real and because the relationbetween the sign and the referent s inscribedby a difference that isameasure

of thecultural distance and of theuncertainties affectingthe subject.The exiled

writer juxtaposes images of thepastwith those of thepresent and transforms

what isfamiliarintosomethingforeign, wistingreality na kind ofmetaphoricalmove thatbrings to the surfaceofwriting the inner condition of trauma that is

at thebase of the separation from themotherland.

This is the case ofGonzalo Mill?n when, in his Canadian experience, he

attaches todeath the image of thehockey player:

Canadian death

glides towards me,

swiftlyver the ce

like a hockey-player

wieldinghis wooden scythe.

I don't even know how to skate,

I play soccer, I tell him. ("Hockey" 187)

The "voice" in thispoem ischaracterizedby a split subjectivitywhich begins by"painting" reality ith itsfears nd ends up responding to thechallenge ofdeath.

The "I" claims ignoranceof themajor Canadian cultural referent, ockey,while,in the same subversivegesture, expressing the extentof itsknowledge: "I play



192

soccer."Throughout thepoem, thismasculine death isconfrontedby thepoeticvoicewith anothermajor cultural referent hat isnot sharedby the locals, but,more importantly, y death itself, opefully confused by theonewho does not

know how toplay the "game."At the same time, however, thedisplacement of

the realby themetaphorical inMill?n isalso amanifestation of fear, n emotion

projected by thepoetic voice over ordinary reality. n thispoem, the encounter

with the realityof Canadian culture does not have a positive resolution for the

subject because to continue his existence he has to find a balance between

symbolization and fact, game othersmay not bewilling toplay.The fearof the

subject in "Hockey" is inmany ways the product of the broken relation toreferents,he signpostsof theworld, thatbecome menacing by theirforeignness.Thus, space is also fragmented in the experience of the exile; this is so because

the territoryf asylum isfloodedby the imagesof another space (the landwhere

death took the formofpolitical repression) thatcomes to the surface tobreak

thenormality of signs in thenew land.

What Claudio Guill?n calls the "crisis semi?tica" (115),the instability r the

disruption of communication by the "surfacing"of theworld of thepast into the

present, isa pervasive phenomenon in thewritings of theLatin exile inCanada.

In "Ottawa," a poem from Jorge tcheverry'sLa calle (1985), the land of

origin,which isa desired space inL?pez Pacheco or the ominous thatcomes to the fore

tobreak thenaturalness of theworld inMill?n, is transformed ntoan imprecise

reality, world denied in itsmateriality for thebanished (here, inpassing, the

Spanish "desterrado" gives theprecise sense I am looking for):

Los hombres de la oficina me dicen

"Where do you come from?"

Mientras limpio los pisos

Y dicen:

"Is that inArgentina?"

"Near Mexico?"

"There is a Jungle there?" ("Ottawa" 61)

The symbolism of this dialogue points to two directions which concern the

alienation of the exile; on theone hand, thepoetic character loses, oncemore,his or her land of originby thegeographical ignoranceof thepeople in theoffice;on the other, the exile seems tomaterialize the land of asylum in the act of

cleaning it.The status of the exile and the questions in relation to his or her

origin are alluding in thispoem toa social condition inwhich one is subservient

to thedominant culture ifnot transformedby it into a non-entity. Etcheverryispresentinguswith an image of thedisruption of identity n thecontext of the

denial of the subject'svital spaces,while, in the same thrust, bjectifyingthe land

that sustains and excludes the foreigner.



193

Carmen Rodriguez's story"Agujeronegro" isanother tellingexample of the

d?nouement of thecrisis of signs.Rodriguez's storyfollows the actions ofEstela,a Chilean exile.Confronting thepossibilityof returningtoher countryoforiginaftermany years of absence, Estela mixes visions of Chile with those of

Vancouver:

Pensaba que ya estar?a por salir lamisa de once de la Catedral Metropolitana y que

entonces s?que saldr?a la gente que ella conoc?a. Pero cuando miraba al frente de la plaza,

en vez de ver la Catedral de Santiago, ve?a el edificio de lamunicipalidad de Vancouver,

con su relojdando lasdoce yel jard?n lenode tulipanes. 64)

In the storythere isa generalized crisis in the relationship between the subjectand the surrounding world. The "reading" of signs, the connection of the

characterwith what isnow familiarbecomes confused by the imagesof the land

of thepast. At the end, the loss of thehierarchical relation of signs to subjectleads to chaos and nothingness:

Al darse cuenta que estaba rodeada por la nada, quiso abrazar su propio cuerpo, s?lo que

entonces se dio cuenta de que su cuerpo era el agujero y el agujero era ella. Lo ?nico

n?tido en medio de la negrura total fue su voz, atrapada ahora en su garganta, tratando

de recordar c?mo se pide auxilio... pero, ?en qu? idioma? (67)

The storyalso exemplifiesthe stillcrucial relationbetween the subject's identityand the land, a relationshipwhich latelyhas been put into question by the

processes ofglobalization. InRodriguez, aswell as inEtcheverry,theproblem of

belonging and of thefaithfulness f theperson to a homeland as a primary site

for self recognition is played out as a territory f conflict for the traditional

determinations of identity. xilewriting, in this context, seems tobe tellingus

thestory

of anexperience

inwhich thesubject

is tornbetween old and new

allegiances. Not a condition tobe cherished, but one thatproduces chaos and

suffering.

As we have seen so far, oundaries in space have become indeterminateby the

crisis of signs; realityhas lost its familiarity; the characters do not recognizethemselves in the signsof theworld; and the images of theother territory ome

to flood the present. The commonplace space of everyday life shows the

limitations of the universalizing of exile, and it is an example of one of the

possible outcomes of the breaking of national boundaries by technologies,communication and travel in themodern world. In this context,perhaps the

most importantvalue of thewritingof the exile isprecisely that itexplores, in theworks of the imagination, themovement ofpeople across boundaries and that

itdeals with the feelings involved in that traumatic transplantation. AgainClaudio Guill?n is clearwhen hewrites about thepathos of the exile's life hich



194

theworks of Latin-Canadians allow us to glimpse: "La persona sedesangra. El

yo siente como rota y fragmentada su propia naturaleza psicosocial, y su

participaci?n en los sistemasde signos en que descansa la vida cotidiana" (14).To conclude, letus now move to the issue of exile as dissidence. As we have

discussed, thewritingof the exile seems to foregroundthedecentringof identityin thecontextofpersonal and social disintegration; inaddition, the space/timecoordinateswhich are supposed tobe thenesting ground for thesubjectbecome

foreign and menacing or simply indifferentto the plight of the individual.

Throughout our argument,we have seen that the causes of the condition of

disintegration, decentring and marginality are located in the personal and

collective traumas sufferedby the exiled person. Bymoving in that critical

direction,we hope to refocus exile and to argue against itstransformation into

another universal ("we are all exiles"). Our purpose was also tooppose the view

of exile as a space of freedom and creativity nd of exile as dissidence from the

constraints of everyday life. The comparison between exile,whose root is

trauma, and exile as dissidence is relevantsince ithelps us clarify he ideological

implications of the reappropriation of exile by postmodern thinkers.

Thomas Docherty takes up JuliaKristeva's ideas about exile inAlterities:

Criticism,History, Representation.His intention is to accommodate thisnotion

intoa politics of thepostmodern. Docherty endorses Kristeva's use of the term:

"Exile ... is itself form of dissidence, since it involves themarginalization or

decentring of the self fromall positions of totalized or systematicLaw" (67), a

notion that seems to theorize thedesire forexile seen inmany Latin-American

intellectuals, but one that does not consider the pathos of exile nor the

implicationsofpunishment and the strugglesforsurvivalalready implicit in the

term. In Docherty, marginalization and decentring are the products of a

conscious and voluntary act of exile from "totalized or systematicLaw," an idea

that follows Kristeva's exile from "themire of common sense." Exile is thus

made intoan aestheticized form of action for the intellectual,a form inwhichthe realbody,with itstraumasand pains, isdisplaced or neutralizedby thedesire

for "jouissance."

In Kristeva's essay on dissidence, she also comments on thevirtuality and

transitorinessofmeaning in thewriting of the exile: "ifmeaning exists in the

stateof exile, itnevertheless finds no incarnation, and is ceaselessly producedand destroyed in geographical or discursive transformations" (298). One can

agreewith Kristeva's appreciation of the "geographical and discursive transform

ation" affectingthewriting of the exile,but in thisparticular theorizing there isno concern for the subject implicit in the idea ofmeaning. Kristeva's and

Docherty's theoreticalposture correspond with thepostmodern denial of the"unified subject" which, according to Terry Eagleton, is itself a fictional

construct (The Illusions ofPostmodernism 34). In fact, "the state of exile," of



195

which Kristeva writes involves a subjectivity,that is,an individual who suffers

that "state."The privileging of "alterity,"emptied of thepathos of life in the

postmodern, corresponds to the theoretical production of a new automaton -

a "being" capable of action but, appropriately, itseems,without the feelingsthat

are so hard tomarket in thepresentworld. As we already saw in the definitions

of theword exile, in the experience of the exile there is one who "wanders

aimlessly."Exile isnot only a separation from the land of origin, but also from

"something inyou" thathas become confused and displaced, and from "the

other,"as seen in incommunication. Once more, Jes?s

L?pezPacheco's

poetryisexemplary in theway inwhich itdeals with these conditions thatbesiege the

individual:

I,who lived without water because I loved thewater,

who exchanged iberty orhope?I,who leftyouth for tomorrow?

I, landless for love ofmy land,

and wordless for love of words? (67)

In thewriting of the exile there is always a pull towards the "I" and, throughwriting, towardsa possible definition of identity, ne that isclearlyproblematicand certainlynot definite.Consequently, disintegration, decentring,marginalityand the questioning of identityhas a different sense that inmany ways is

contrarytopostmodern discourse. Because of trauma, the subject is"fractured"

and, because of the lossof his or her everydayreferents,he subject isdecentred;thus theobjectiveworld becomes foreignor reifiedby thebreach between the

person and theworld.

The alienating distance fromwhat surrounds the exile and the struggle to

grasp it isa condition similar to thatwhich preoccupies some theoreticians: that

to combat the commodification of life nadvanced capitalismwe must find someareas in lifewhere we can escape reification.This is the point inwhich the

transformation f exile intodissidence inKristeva becomes ameans toevade the

constraints ofworldly experience. Exile, in contrast, isnotwilled and results

fromviolence; exile and its existential dilemmas are linked to traumas and to

thatoverpowering experiencewhich ispain; exile, as Edward Said writes in the

"TheMind ofWinter," "is theunhealable rift orcedbetween a human being and

a native place, between the selfand its truehome" (49). As can be seen inmy

argument, themutation in the notion of exile can lead to the forgetting f the

physicalityof trauma,already implied in the old idea of the exile as theonewho

has been "disembowelled." Furthermore, the confrontingviews underlying the

notion bring into the open the ideological limitations of the postmodern

conceptualization of exile: that it llows the "colonization,"by itsunethical logic,



196

of what Habermas calls the "life-worid" - the Lebenswelt (see Eagleton The

Ideology of theAesthetic) and, in thatcontextof life,the colonization of one of

itsmost liminaland extraneous of conditions: exile.Thus, against the transform

ation of exile into dissidence, or evasion from responsibility, we see the

importance of exploring exile as a siteof struggle fornew forms of creativity,

belonging and identityin the contextof cultural and territorialdisplacement.

UniversityofCalgary

NOTES

1 Iwould liketopointout theironic ituation f the stoicwho fightsgainstthe

pains of banishment by transforming theworld into his or her own country and

that of the cynics, in the person of Diogenes who, as quoted by Claudio Guill?n,

when asked if"los de S?nope te condenaron al destierro," answered: "y yo a

ellos a que siguieran en su ciudad" (17).2 In "Am?rica Latina: exilio y literatura" Cort?zar writes: "Al tocar el problema

del escritor exiliado, me incluyo actualmente entre los innumerables protagonistas de la

di?spora.

La diferencia est? en

que

mi exilio se ha vuelto forzoso en

estos ?ltimos a?os; cuando me fui de laArgentina en 1951, lo hice por mi propiavoluntad y sin razones pol?ticas o ideol?gicas apremiantes. Por eso, durante

m?s de veinte a?os pude viajar con frecuencia ami pa?s, y s?lo a partir de 1974

me vi obligado a considerarme como un exiliado" (60).

3 According to Scarry, language reaches its limits when confronted with pain:

"Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it,bringingabout an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and

cries a human being makes before language is learned" (4).

4 No doubt, another important representation is the banishment of Adam and

Eve from Paradise, a universalizing image inwhich exile is rooted in tempta

tion, sin and punishment.5 A point made by Vijay Mishra during a presentation on migrant issues and exile

at theUniversity of Calgary in 1999. His argument closely followed Freuds

paper on "Mourning and Melancholia."

6 I borrow these ideas from Asher Z. Milbauer who writes of these conditions in

Joseph Conrad's story "Amy Foster." See Transcending Exile: Conrad, Nabokov,

LB. Singer.



197

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