MARJORIE AGOSIN:

MARJORIE
AGOSIN:
A WOMAN,
A JEW AND
A CHILEAN
"Political torture — when we are speaking
of imprisoned women — implies a sexual
relationship',' says Marjorie Agosin, the
author of Zones of Pain (Fredonia, NY:
White Pine Press. 1988). a spare, elegiac,
hallucinatory collection of poetry about
female torture victims in Chile, Treblinka.
Argentina and elsewhere. "It's an unspeakable evil, a sexuality of evil. I am a
woman, a Jew and a Chilean. That is how 1
come to write about repression and torture, including sexual torture.
"Yes, I've been totally privileged and
spared the political violence that I write
about!' she continues. "But my work is
autobiographical in terms of my empathy, I
know many female survivors of torture,
families of desaparecidos, my Jewish
family was among the first to come to
Chile. Pogroms are in my soul!"
In Chile, the dictatorship that seized
power after the murder of Salvador
Allende in 1973 tortured, mutilated and
murdered not only those who opposed
their regime overtly, but also artists and
other "subversives;" women were particularly victimized. Chile was not alone. In
Argentina, during the military junta's
reign of terror from 1976 to 1983, activists
and non-political people alike were kidnapped, inluding pregnant women. (See
"My Children Are Disappeared" by Aviva
Cantor, LILITH, Summer 1986.)
12 L I L I T H
Summer 1990
Agosin's non-fiction books — The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo: The Story ofRenee
Epelbaum (Stratford, Ontario: WilliamsWallace Publishers. 1989) and Scraps of
Life: Chilean Arpilleras: Chilean Women
and the Pinochet Dictatorship (Trenton,
NJ: The Red Sea Press, 1989) - explore
similar motifs as her poetry. Proceeds from
her non-fiction support the women about
whom Agosin writes.
Having left Chile — by choice — in
1972, Agosin now lives with her husband
and two-year-old son in Wellesley, Massachusetts. A tenured professor in the
Spanish department at Wellesley College,
Agosin's courses reflect her ideology:
"Literature in Human Rights'.' "Legacy of
Hispanic Women" (which Agosin describes as appropriate for "writers, painters and activists"), and "Witnesses for the
Persecution: Women Writers in Comparative Literature!'
Agosin's message to her students is "to
understand that our situation of privilege is
a tool for changing the world, but not
through paternalism. We must work
through 'circular understanding." that is,
we must come to know that the Mapuche
Indian woman has much to teach us, that
women of the Third World know more
than we do about what it means to be
human, to be kind!'
To Jewish women. Agosin suggests,
"become comfortable with your identity.
When you are comfortable with that you
become universal!" With these words as a
political backdrop, it becomes easier to
understand why, for example, a single
Agosin poem invokes, without pause, both
Anne Frank and Sonia de las Mercedes.
"It's time for Jewish women to see the
Holocaust as a people's issue, not just a
Jewish one. Why did I get involved in
human rights? Because I have a Jewish
vision, everything about being Jewish has
made me care about injustice!' She adds,
"North American Jews should take a
closer look at Latin American Jewry as
well. Many of us live under repressive
dictatorships'."
Agosin dedicates her book: "A mi hijo
que nunca pudo ver el cielo" ("For my
child who could never see the sky"),
explaining. "There were many, many
women who were tortured while they were
pregnant, and these mothers aborted....
"If the convictions of a country supports
torture!' she continues, "it must be denounced. I write about these issues because the violence in Latin America is
everywhere. It is impossible not to see it.
"Yet!' she says bitterly, "most people
don't see it. That is why this world is so
rotten!'
^
— Susan Schnur