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Engaging Dialogues: The Writing of Elena Poniatowska. By Beth E. Jorgensen. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994.172 pages.
Although recently critics have been writing increasingly more articles on the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska, Jorgensen's book is the first book-length study. Its timeliness and intelligent craftmanship make her book a useful tool for readers of Poniatowska and those interested in Latin American and women's studies.
Jorgensen's study focuses upon four books: Palabras cruzadas (1961), Hasta no verte Jesus mio (1969), La noche de Tlatelolco (1971), and La "Flor de lis" (1988). In her Introduction, she presents the overarching concerns developed in the four chapters, each dealing with one of the texts noted above. Central to Jorgensen's critical approach are the interrelated concepts of dialogue and subjectivity, adapted from the theories of dialogism developed by Mikhail Baktin and the multiple subjectivity of speaking agents analyzed by Paul Smith. The play of discursive authority in any text, between texts, and within (speaking) subjects, provides ample grounds for a consideration of Poniatowska's multiple types of writing in these texts, namely interviews, testimonial novel, oral history and novel of development. Jorgensen's point of departure, dialogue, is especially appropriate in her study, since she matches her approach to what she considers essential qualities of Poniatowska's life, thematic concerns and writing style. Jorgensen brings many of Poniatowska's other writings to bear on these key works, along with the author's status as an upper-class foreigner attempting to understand the Mexican...