Feminism and cosmopolitanism in Mi amigo azul (1934), by Hortensia Elizondo

Abstract

Short story production written by women in Mexico has received little attention, especially that published in the first half of the 20th century. Mi amigo azul (1934), by the mexican writer Hortensia Elizondo (1908-1953), is an expression of the tensions, concerns and itineraries of an author who lived and studied in various countries of the american and european continent, and who distinguished herself as feminist, writer, journalist, and film critic at a national and international level. The analysis of mexican short story writers like Hortensia Elizondo is important because of the literary quality and because for a long time “ha habido un silencio, involuntario o no, que nos hizo creer que no había muchas mujeres que se dedicaban a la literatura” (Pedroza, 2018). This article aims to analyze the production conditions of the author and the storybook Mi amigo azul from the socio-historical conceptual framework (Sarlo and Altamirano, 2001). In this sense, the socio-historical method considers that literature is a social practice determined or conditioned by the society in which the writer develops and publishes her work. As has happened with dozens of writers in the history of mexican literature, Elizondo's literary and journalistic work has received little or no attention from critics for a number of reasons that we associate, in principle, with her condition as a young woman, her feminism, catholicism and cosmopolitanism, in a conservative context marked by machismo, misogyny, nationalism and chauvinism.