Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

María Cristina Ramos, a Patagonian Voice

2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 60; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/bkb.2022.0040

1918-6983

Cecilia Repetti, María S. Rizzo,

Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism

María Cristina Ramos, a Patagonian Voice Cecilia Repetti (bio) Translated by María S. Rizzo María Cristina Ramos was born in San Rafael, in the south of the province of Mendoza, the land of sun and good wine. After graduating as a literature teacher, she went to Neuquén, in Patagonia, where she has lived since. Both provinces, which embrace the Andes Mountain Range, are part of the poetic landscape that she re-creates masterfully but without hiding the way the inhabitants of that landscape struggle for their daily life. She tells about it in “Camino corto, camino largo” (“Short Path, Long Path”), a story in Azul la Cordillera (Blue Mountain Range; 2005). A little girl’s voice says: From a distance the mountain range is blue, if you don’t remember the stones and the frozen soil. That colour blue is the distance, the teacher says. There is a long way from the lodge to my home. I go round looking at the maitenes that barely sway at the water’s edge. The maitenes grow next to each other, close enough to have a conversation. Higher up you can’t find any. At that point you begin to see the colour of the stone and the altitude casts its shadow. We must keep climbing. The teacher says to be careful. He says it every time the road ends and we walk along the ledge one at a time. I like it. The teacher doesn’t. I like staring down at the river that looks so small and rumbles. No one will fall, I tell the teacher. Because the mountain gives you support. But watch out, he tells me. He says it again. (45) Click for larger view View full resolution The words of the teacher are evoking other distances that isolate many other corners in the mountain landscape. María Cristina Ramos is able to carry this evocation with her poetic words in the novel El trasluz (Against the Light; 2013), for example, when the mountain wind blows away volcanic ashes and changes the fate of the characters forever. The maze of streets in Tres Esquinas was not enough to channel the rage of the wind which tore off the paraísos and locust trees and uprooted the eucalyptus. But the worst was what happened with the bell tower. A gigantic whirlwind, like the blow of a dragon tail, knocked it out with a din of soil and bells. At that moment, fear made the atheists hesitate and the believers negotiate with the saints they worshipped. [End Page 33] Click for larger view View full resolution The bells were a hundred years old; they had been brought in a wagon that linked the port with remote inland areas. Sometimes, those bells tolled on their own: it was a mystery they brought over from the foundry. They rang to announce catastrophes that would happen one hundred kilometers round, and yesterday they hadn’t rung. Matías Moreno thought about this when the wind blew up. (7–8) Although the poetic discourse is tightly entwined in her narrative, it is in her poetry where Ramos revels in rhythm and rich sonority, because she is made up of poetry. There is nothing better than mentioning here Un sol para tu sombrero (A Sun for Your Hat; 1999) as an example. This is the first of more than seventy books that make up her work. In her dedication, which might as well be in each of her books, she tells us that she writes “for naughty children, for the ones who store up inappropriate treasures, for the ones who splash nonchalantly, for the ones who are tickly but also have little holes on their sneakers” (7). Click for larger view View full resolution Every Day When you comb mecomb mewith frost little combs,because the moon combsruffle my eyelashes. When you wash mewash mewith little clover soaps,for unlucky soapsslip through my fingers. When you dry medry mewith a big towel without lace,for little threadsstick on my tickling. Lend meevery daya hat for the sun,a sun for...