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Reinterpreting the Spanish-American Essay. Women Writers of the l9th and 20th Centuries. Ed. Doris Meyer. Austin: U of Texas P, 1995. 246 pages.
The authors of these 21 articles and essays, like the editor in her introduction, militate as sharpshooters in the ongoing war between feminist criticism and "androcentric" canoneers. One is left with the impression that the gender factor will remain an explosive literary issue for some time.
Anyone interested in forms and functions of the essay-a genre still largely dumped in the shrubbery of "Non-Fiction" by publishers, bookstores and literary supplements, should appreciate these critics' efforts. Reinterpreting the Spanish American Essay is a complementary volume to Doris Meyer's anthology of women's essays which also appeared in 1995.
Hispanic American literary history and criticism, to be sure, have not given female essayists their merited attention. In passing it might be noted that except for quite recent fiction writers (Luisa Valenzuela, Isabel Allende,...