Nona Fernández

memory and revolt

Abstract

The dramatic works El taller (2012) and Liceo de niñas (2016), by the award-winning Chilean writer Nona Fernández, examine the past from a dystopian perspective. This perspective is born, according to the clues given to us by the texts, from the clash that occurs between dreams (utopias) and a social context in which justice does not seem possible to be exercised. The article examines how the author constructs an imaginary device to confront this reality and how she confronts us with themes that historical and journalistic data confirm. Therefore, we analyze the work analogically. In this way, we start from the facts from which the dramatic writings emerge and from some of the fictional intertextualities that arise from the reading. This material enables us to recognize the field within which these dramatic texts (historical and literary) are inserted and the images that the works use. Nona Fernández reviews the past in a scathing way, combining humor with violence. Her aesthetics distance themselves from the epic view in order to exercise criticism of the past.