Amamos diferente: creating the imagined lesbian community in Rosamaría Roffiel’s Amora, Sara Levi Calderón’s Dos mujeres and Reyna Barrera’s Sandra secreto amor

This is a study of three contemporary, Mexican, lesbian themed novels published between 1989 and 2001. The overall aim of this thesis was to explore the creation of a lesbian community by the authors in these novels by close textual analysis of the methods the authors use in order to explore the creation of Mexican lesbian identity and community. The lesbian community as an imagined concept is explored using Benedict Anderson’s theory of the nation as an imagined community as a model. Whilst the literary and publishing world is traditionally male dominated, the use of female, lesbian authorship and the repeated use of the act of writing within the novel is revealed to be subversive in breaking traditional gendered boundaries within Mexican literature. The lesbian community is seen to be given increased visibility as a result both of the dissemination of printed text and by activist and academic organisation on a national scale. Notions of passing and coming out are seen to be developed within the three novels and the thesis analyses the use of these themes in creating an imagined lesbian community. The use of passing and public secrecy, where an individual’s sexual identity is simultaneously publically known but not acknowledged, is shown to be essential in the creation of a lesbian community within the novels. In addition, the thesis explores the manner in which the authors subvert traditional Mexican feminine roles and figures in order to include lesbian representations within mainstream Mexican cultural identifiers. Through literary, cultural and historical references the authors subvert traditional notions of the duality of sexuality and gendered stereotypes in order to create an imagined lesbian community which is fluid and which provides a queer voice to what is still largely a silenced minority