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own position. As Checa and Gómez conclude, this letter is a literary identity while transcending the hegemonic prac-
an example of the importance of studying correspondence tices of the period in Spain.
“para afinar en la reconstrucción de los perfiles identitarios The notion of identity is explored further in chapter 7
de los individuos a reconocer la complejidad de la identi- “La metamorfosis de Eloína” where Carmen de la Guardia
dad pública y privada de los mismos…” (125). Herrero focuses on letters between the “mujeres modernas”:
In the 5th Chapter, Domingo Ródenas de Moya discuss- Consuelo Berges Rábago and Eloína Ruiz Malasecheverar-
es “El epistolario del exilio de Guillermo de Torre,” which ría. According to Guardia, this correspondence displays the
is a very broad overview with select excerpts of the poet’s fractured female identities caused by the harsh political and
prolific correspondence available between 1916-1971. The social conditions of the early 20th century, yet also demon-
definition of “exilio,” Ródenas de Moya admits, is a broad strates these two women’s successful strategies of survival
one in the case of Torre: although his period of exile began and resistance, especially those of Eloína, who consistently
at the end of 1936 with his fleeing Spain to reside first in attempted to redefine and recalibrate her identity. In con-
Paris, then in Buenos Aires (1937), Ródenas also identifies clusion, Guardia maintains that for all of us, the notion of
a period of Torre’s “autoexilio” that took place prior to the a coherent and continuous identity is simply an unobtain-
Spanish Civil War. The analysis ultimately aims at shedding able “fantasía” (197).
light on the internal aspects of Torre’s intellectual exile that Chapter 8 is Ximena Venturini’s study of the letters Fran-
are caused by the clash between his anti-Franco stance and cisco Ayala, Spanish author wrote to Eduardo Mallea and
the cultural system of the dictatorship. Francisco Romero, members of the named “Grupo Sur de
Raquel Fernández Menéndez extends the examination Argentina.” Venturini clarifies that due to the many reloca-
of Guillermo de Torre’s correspondence in the 6th chapter tions by Ayala during his life, including his own exile in Ar-
“Autoridad y autobiografía en las cartas de Ángela Figuera gentina from 1939-1950 before he moved to Puerto Rico,
Aymerich a Guillermo de Torre,” but with a focus on three much of his correspondence was lost, including that with
specific letters that the Spanish poet and writer Ángela Mallea. Nevertheless, and as Venturini asserts, the letters
Figuera Aymerich addressed to Torre in 1959, 1960, and highlighted in this chapter disclose the complex nuances of
1962, respectively. Fernández posits that Figuera’s letters re- the friendship between Ayala and his “Grupo Sur” (214).
flect an attempt at visualizing the poet’s own literary pro- Perspectives of exile are also examined in Elena Sánchez
duction within Spain’s predominantly masculine environ- de Madariaga’s chapter 9 “‘El Catalán errante.’ Los exil-
ment while criticizing gender inequalities in the writing ios de Néstor Almendros en la correspondencia de Pilar de
profession. Ultimately and according to Fernández, these Madariaga.” Focusing on eight letters from a 15-year period
letters represent Figuera’s noble achievement of establishing (1958-1973) of the famed Spanish cinematographer’s pe-
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Revist a de al ce s XXI Número 6 , 2024
