Though open public discussion of the oppression of women was precluded by the nature of Hispanic societies during the nineteenth century, some Hispanic women – among them the Cuban writer Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda – subtly sought to promote ideas of emancipation. Focusing upon her autobiographical letters and a selection of her novels, and drawing on contemporary psychoanalytical feminist theory, this book traces the evolution of Avellaneda’s feminism, showing how she developed a series of narrative techniques and stylistic resources to explore male and female self-representation, and subvert the existing textual tradition. Fashioning Feminism in Cuba and Beyond establishes Avellaneda at the forefront of both Cuban and Hispanic nineteenth-century literature and feminist thought.

The Author: Brígida M. Pastor is Senior Lecturer of Hispanic studies at the University of Glasgow. She received her doctorate from the University of Bristol. She is the author of many articles and essays on the Cuban writer as well as El discurso de Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda: Identidad Femenina y Otredad (2002). She has also published widely on other topics within Spanish and Latin American literature and on Cuban and Spanish film. In 1999, her studies on Avellaneda earned her a special award from the Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda Chair in Gender Studies at the Instituto de Literatura y Lingüística, Havana, Cuba.