Self-construal in exile: Chacel's negotiation with the Argentinian audience

The identity-building process of exiled republican writers moves in a field of tension between Spain and the host country. The self-image Rosa Chacel crafted in the short essays published during her Argentinian exile (1940–1959) and collected in the volume La lectura es secreto (1989) exemplifies that tension. On the one hand, there is a strong sense of identification with Ortega y Gasset’s generation and with the Spanish past. On the other, the scene from where the essays are enunciated is situated in the Argentinian context of the present: based on the reading experiences of the day in Argentina, a dialogic relationship with the Argentinian public is created. Contrary to what the title of the collection La literatura es secreto suggests — a reference to the solitary character of reading — the dialogic dimension of reading is reflected in the essays and becomes the mechanism through which Chacel rebuilds — between the Spain of the past and the Argentina of the present — her exiled self