Rosario de Swanson Writes “Literature as Resistance”

“Words. I savor them, I use them as sustenance, assimilate them until they become part of myself, until I become part of them,” wrote Mexican feminist and writer Rosario Castellanos. Castellanos is the subject of the first in a series of three literary profiles authored by Spanish language and literature professor Rosario de Swanson, to appear on the MassHumanities blog The Public Humanist.

Titled “Literature as Resistance,” the series discusses the work of three writers from different literary traditions that constitute acts of resistance by means of representation. In addition to Castellanos, Rosario will profile Guinean writer María Nsué and Afro-Peruvian writer Nicomedes Santa Cruz.

Rosario’s first piece in the series demonstrates how Rosario Castellanos’ poems, plays, novels, essays, and editorials follow the twin threads of oppression of indigenous people, particularly women, and of Mexican women. The essay builds on her recent book on Castellanos’ plays, “¿Y cuál es mi lugar señor entre tus actos?”: El drama de Rosario Castellanos (Peter Lang, 2018).