Ithaca College

Assistant professor Annette Levine's book, Cry For Me, Argentina: The Performance of Trauma in the Short Narratives of Aida Bortnik, Griselda Gambaro, and Tununa Mercado, was recently released by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

In her book, Levine draws on Latin American literary, trauma, performance, and cultural studies to analyze the narratives of three Argentine women writer-activists, whose work reveals the traumatic repercussions of the Dirty War (1976-83) and cultivates a narrative space for working through the traumatic impact of the era.

Levine argues that the work of all three authors emphasizes the imperative to restore the dialogical principal obliterated by repressive authoritarian regimes. By doing so within their narrative, they cultivate a performance space in which they incite the reader to participate in the process of mourning, working toward social justice and healing.