Voices from the Interior: "La Memoria Privada de Los Pueblos"

Abstract

In a cartoon by Bianfa in La voz del interior newspaper (C?rdoba, Argentina), an old lady sits in a chair with a cat in her lap. She says, Por fin en Buenos Aires est?n poniendo orden, le van a hacer multas al que no use cintur?n castidad... Her daughter, leaning into room, says, de seguridad, Mam?...de seguridad. Apart from satirizing recent seat belt law, cartoon resonates with rivalry between Buenos Aires and interior. The viejita cordobesa takes for granted that everyone knows that Buenos Aires has problems, and that capital is source of problems for rest of country. Buenos Aires looms large, and oppressive, in thinking of those from interior. Two novels by Cristina Bajo, Sierva Dios, ama la muerte, and Ana Gloria Moya, Cielo tambores, portray Argentina in terms of this other half, interior provinces and their varied peoples. Cristina Bajo is cordobesa and her three novels and several short story collections all focus on this province in center of Argentina. Her novels have enjoyed wide success through? out country as best sellers, with Grijalbo publishing her third novel in Spain in 2005. Ana Gloria Moya, from Tucum?n, lives in Salta where she works as a public defender. She has published two collections of short stories, and her novel Cielo tambores won Sor Juana In?s la Cruz prize in 2002. This study examines Sierva Dios, ama la muerte, Bajo's third novel set in early years of eighteenth century when C?rdoba played a central role in colonial commerce, learning, and religion, and examines as well as Cielo tambores, in which Moya writes first years of nineteenth century with birth of Argentine patria in its varied races and religions. Examining protagonism of interior, in its distinct manifestations, analyzing writers' choice of victims, and highlighting redemption of protagonists and writers' revision of history confirms strategic place of these novels in reconstruction of Argentina's identity through memories of pueblos of interior. Bajo and Moya anchor their novels in interior not from position of exiles looking back but from interior looking out. As Fran cine Masiello notes of the interventions of women and sexual minorities, these two novelists,