LGTV Literature in Argentina comprises Argentine authors using themes or characters that are gay, or are related to, sexual diversity. It forms part of a tradition dating back to the 19th century, although LGBT literature as its own category in the Argentine humanities did not occur until the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s, on par with the birth of the LGBT rights movement in the country.
The first examples of LGBT relationships in Argentine literature had a negative connotation. These relationships illustrated the idea of the supposed social degradation in the working class and as an antagonistic paradigm of the platform that the country wanted to promote. The oldest is found in the story "The Slaughter Yard" (1838) by Esteban Echeverría, a classic of Argentine literature in which sex between men is used as a metaphor for barbarism. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, examples of homosexual characters were negative, and many culminated in tragedy.Melo, 2011, p. 14–19Melo, 2011, p. 155 Among these, a standout piece is the theatrical work Los invertidos ("The Inverts," 1914) by José González Castillo, which was banned after its debut due to its subject matter. follows a bourgeois man who has a secret homosexual lover and who decides to commit suicide when his wife finds out about his sexual orientation.Melo, 2011, p. 94–101
The 1959 story ("The Narration of the Story") by Carlos Correas marked a paradigm shift, becoming the first Argentine literary work in which homosexuality is shown as a normal trait for the protagonist and not something harmful. However, its publication was controversial and there was a trial over its supposed immorality and pornographic content, in addition to a series of attacks on the author and the "homosexual/Marxist" conspiracy.Melo, 2011, p. 12 Also in 1956, Silvina Ocampo published ("Letter Lost in a Drawer"), the first of her stories to include lesbian references. A few years later, in 1964, Renato Pellegrini published the first LGBT novel in Argentina, ("Asphalt"), which narrates the story of a young homosexual who discovers Buenos Aires' gay subculture and for which the author was sentenced to four months in jail for the crime of obscenity.
In the latter half of the 20th century, Argentine authors began to incorporate LGBT acts or characters with political subtext about Peronism or military dictatorships.Melo, 2011, p. 215–233 Prominent in this was Manuel Puig, author of The Buenos Aires Affair (1973) and, in particular, Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976), one of the most well-known works in Spanish-language 20th century Latin American queer literature. In the novel, Puig follows the story of Valentín and Molina, a left-wing revolutionary and a homosexual cinema fan, respectively, while they share a cell during Argentina's period of state terrorism. Other works with LGBT characters or where violent homosexual acts are employed as a metaphor to tackle political topics are ("The Invasion," 1967) by Ricardo Piglia,Melo, 2011, p. 233–236 ("The Mouth of the Whale," 1973) by Héctor Lastra, and ("The Proletarian Boy," 1973) by Osvaldo Lamborghini. Although it not related to politics, another of this era's notable figures was Alejandra Pizarnik who explored lesbian sexual violence in some of her works.Arnés, 2016, p. 233–236
During the last Argentine dictatorship, some novels came to light that were considered foundational in the Argentine lesbian narrative: ("Mount Venus," 1976) by Reina Roffé and ("Soon Prison," 1981) by Sylvia Molloy.Arnés, 2016, p. 142–159 The first takes place in a school and narrates the story of a young lesbian who recounts her amorous adventures and wanderings through the city through recordings, while the second novel follows a woman who writes her story from a room in which she waits in vain for the woman she loves. Because of their themes, both novels were affected by censorship. Another historically important lesbian novel is ("Rooms") by Emma Barrandeguy, originally written in the 1950s but not published until 2002.Arnés, 2016, p. 164–167
The 1990s saw the publication of various famous LGBT works such as ("The Skeffington Affair," 1992) by María Moreno,Arnés, 2016, p. 233–245 ("Cruel Plastic," 1992) by José Sbarra, ("Burning Money," 1997) by Ricardo Piglia, and Melo, 2011, p. 341–344 ("A Year without Love," 1998) by Pablo Pérez, in which the author explores his experience living with HIV. In the 21st century, LGBT literature has gained greater visibility in Argentina due to commercial success from authors like Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, who began to explore sexual diversity in her novel La Virgen Cabeza ("Slum Virgin," 2009) and achieved international fame with ("The Adventures of China Iron," 2017); and Camila Sosa Villada, in particular with her novel Las Malas ("Bad Girls," 2019).
19th Century
Some of the foundational texts of Argentine literature drew a comparison between the values considered civilized and behaviors that the authors thought to be negative for society, such as "abnormal sex." "The Slaughter Yard" (1838) was written in this context. It was the first work of Argentine literature to reference a homosexual act. In the story, Esteban Echeverría criticizes Juan Manual de Rosas' authoritarian government to show the Federalist Party as men immersed in barbarism and violence who, in the story's climax, capture an attractive young member of the Unitarian Party. They tie him up and prepare to rape him under orders. However, the young Unitarian opts to slit his own throat rather than permit the transgression of masculinity that being raped would mean, a sacrifice Echeverría uses to represent his conception of courage and honor.Melo, 2011, p. 38–42
The idea of using male rape as a form of torture between the Unitarians and the Federalists was not limited to "The Slaughter Yard". In his poem , Hilario Ascasubi describes a similar situation:Melo, 2011, p. 43–47
Note: Mazorqueros were members of the Mazorca, a vigilante group in 19th century Argentina.
Another foundational work that references sexual diversity is ("The heretic's girlfriend, or the Lima inquisition," 1846), a novel by Vicente Fidel López that tells the story of a romantic relationship between a man and a woman in colonial Lima. In the book, the author describes the world of (an offensive word for "homosexual"), men described as effeminate and coquettish who work as assistants to high-society women. Although López refers to them in a negative way (he affirms that seeing them produces "moral disgust" and that their body language is "repellent"), the text is known for its role as a historical account of the lives homosexuals lived in Lima during this era and the acceptance they enjoyed in certain social sectors. One of the parties that the participate in is described with the following:Melo, 2011, p. 54–56
Gaucho literature and naturalism While there are no explicit references to sexual or romantic acts between people of the same sex, academics like Gustavo Geirola and Adrián Melo have identified homoerotic elements in the friendships between protagonists in classic works of Gaucho literature, like Martín Fierro (1872) by José Hernández, and Juan Moreira (1879) by Eduardo Gutiérrez. In both cases, the protagonists abandon their wives and find men with whom they develop an intense friendship and who become the only recipients of their affection; Cruz in the case of Martín Fierro and Julián in Jaun Moreira. The way in which Gutiérrez describes the relationship between Julián and Moreira has a notably romantic tone, as in the scene in which they meet and Gutiérrez describes, stating his "looks fused them together, in a manner of speaking, and they both smiled," in an encounter between both men in which, after embracing, "their two souls in one perhaps blended," or when telling how Moreira could recognize the arrival of his friend's horse because "his heart told him it was Julián." Martín Fierro's reaction to the death of Cruz, for his part, is described in similar terms to that of Achilles to Patroclus' death, of that of David's elegy for Jonathan's death.Melo, 2011, p. 123–134
The last decades of the 19th century saw the appearance of a wave a novels in literary naturalism that positioned the idea that depravity and criminality were intrinsically linked to lower social classes and foreigners who arrived during the Great European immigration wave to Argentina. One of the authors most focused on this theme was Eugenio Cambaceres, among whose notable works is the novel ("In the blood," 1887), which tells of the life of a boy named Genaro, the son of immigrants, and makes use of homosexual acts to exemplify the protagonist's supposed corruption. Specifically, Cambaceres describes the leader of a group of Genaro's male friends as "cynical and as depraved as an old man" and indicates that they would typically play "men and women," a game in which the bigger boys played the role of men and the smaller boys played the women, and they rolled around two by two on the floor while "trying to imitate their parents' example." Another naturalist novel in which homosexuality is used to draw a negative portrait of a character is ("The Purse," 1891) by Julián Martel, a work in which the face of a Jewish immigrant is described as "disagreeable and effeminate," and it is later suggested that he had a romantic relationship with a younger Jewish boy.Melo, 2011, p. 59, 60, 67–69, 80–83.
20th century
With the arrival of the 20th century, one of the first representations of lesbian love emerged in Argentine literature, the story Marta y Hortensia ("Marta and Hortense"), authored by Enrique Gómez Carrillo, a naturalized Argentine citizen originally from Guatemala, published in his book ("Souls and minds: sentimental histories, Parisian intimacies, etc." 1900). The story, whose plot references the novel La Fille aux yeux d'or (1835) by Honoré de Balzac, follows the tale of a man who discovers that his wife and his sister have begun a secret romance. Although this fills him with rage, he ultimately decides not to confront them.Arnés, 2016, p. 62–64
A few years later, the last major work of Argentine naturalism was published, the theatrical work ("The Inverts," 1914).Melo, 2011, p. 92 written by José González Castillo. In the play, diverse sexualities appear as symbols of social corruption, however, in contrast to the novels at the end of the 19th century, homosexuality has become a symbol of perversion in the bourgeois classes, rather than the working class. The plot of the work, which begins with a reading of a clinical case about the murder of a man at the hands of his lover, a "sexual invert," tells the story of Doctor Flórez, an upper-class man with children, married to a woman named Clara, and who has a secret life and romance with a man of the last name Pérez. When Clara goes to Pérez's apartment, a place where the "brotherhood" of homosexuals meets, she discovers her spouse's sexual orientation and, later on, sees him kissing Pérez, at which point she kills him. Later, she gives a weapon to Flórez for him to kill himself so that he can "cleanse the blood of her descendents," which he does.
Given its theme, was a controversial work and was banned by the superintendent of police for "unsettling morals and proper customs." Despite this, the end of the work adapted to the tendency of the era to present tragic endings for homosexual characters as a form of punishment. The piece is considered a precursor to Argentine LGBT theater, such as local transvestism, and it continued to be produced in theaters in the following decades. With respect to the controversy that its debut caused, González Castillo asserted in a deposition that his intention was "to inspire revulsion for those sad individuals." This negative attitude can be seen in the work, in which the author affirmed, in reference to homosexuals, through Flórez's statement: