Género y representación literaria en la construcción de Eva Perón: narraciones de Abel Posse, Alicia Dujovne Ortiz y Tomás Eloy Martínez

Abstract

This essay examines two novels and a biography published in the mid-90s that construct images of Eva Perón originating in texts of her own time and in successive recreations that have been done since then. Although the same sources and even the same anecdotes are recalled, these narratives offer considerably different portraits, and not just for ideological reasons. In an age such as ours, in which the social scientist and the novelist realize that they cannot speak for the other, and much less in the case of a historical figure who has become a myth, the discursive modality adopted acquires special significance. While in one case, that of Santa Evita, there is no illusion of recovering the true story, in the other two narratives there is a hint that new interpretations may be posited. These representations evoke also gender considerations, for they reveal an awareness that the character being represented is a woman who transgressed the notions of what it meant to be a woman, transforming herself into the leader of a political movement. Even if it is true that Eva’s persona continues to be elusive, the three narratives allow us to understand from our own times the life of a woman who was able to define herself, and whose decisions had real consequences.