Forgotten Texts
19th Century Afro-Argentine Poetic Constructions of Self and Community
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About the Book
Forgotten Texts recovers several lyrical poems by contributors to newspapers that Afro-Argentine editors published (1878-1888) and one from La Nación (1923) in Buenos Aires. It presents understudied minority discourses to the global community and widens appreciation of Afro-Argentine literary production to include belles lettres content and style, for placement alongside more well-known folkloric payadas, tangos, and habaneras. These poems substitute authentic voices for anthologized hegemonic Negrista texts by non-black elites, whose “ventriloquism” drowns out themes of importance to Afrodescendants. Previously overlooked poems by women also appear. Poems and poets’ photographs, together, refute the absence of an Afro-Argentine literary tradition.