Borges, Woman, and Postcolonial History

Abstract

This article offers a critical exploration of the deconstructive possibilities of reading Borges using the figure of woman, focusing specifically on the play of gender and memory, or the gendering of memory, in his late tale 'La intrusa' (1966). The story has never, to my knowledge, been discussed in the context of Borges's Jewish imaginary. A reading of the inferred or crypto-Jewishness of 'La intrusa' (and here I refer to la intrusa as both woman and text) will situate the narrative within a broader consideration of Argentina's postcolonial history, while also re-engaging the ever-relevant question of Borges's status as a 'precursor poscolonial' (Aizenberg, 1997).