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Untangling Literary Knots: Writing, Memory, and Identity in Sonia Rivera-Valdés’ Rosas de Abolengo (2011)

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Contemporary U.S. Latinx Literature in Spanish

Part of the book series: Literatures of the Americas ((LOA))

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Abstract

Rivera-Valdés’ main intention with this novel was to satirize a Cuban exile living in Miami and her recalcitrant anti-Castro position. The result is a narrative that reinforces the value of the spoken word, of Spanish as preferred language of expression and of emotions as key to our identity. This analysis focuses precisely on those issues and further attempts to problematize ideas of memory and truth and their relationship with the present and the past from a critical perspective akin to the one used by Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity (2011) with respect to the inextricable dependency of memory with present experience and their dynamic and reciprocal origin.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    María Celina Bortolotto

Authors
  1. María Celina Bortolotto
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Correspondence to María Celina Bortolotto .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, USA

    Amrita Das

  2. Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ, USA

    Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez

  3. Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

    Michele Shaul

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Bortolotto, M.C. (2018). Untangling Literary Knots: Writing, Memory, and Identity in Sonia Rivera-Valdés’ Rosas de Abolengo (2011). In: Das, A., Quinn-Sánchez, K., Shaul, M. (eds) Contemporary U.S. Latinx Literature in Spanish. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02598-4_5

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