La Mujer y su Expresión

Victoria Ocampo, 1936

Ocampo, Victoria. La Mujer y su Expresión. Buenos Aires: Sur, 1936. First edition. 21.5 cm, 67 pp.; small dampstain at upper fore edge, pages largely unopened; signed and dated by the author in ink to author Alberto Gerchunoff on ffep, with shelf stamp (bookseller’s?) on same page; in orig. green paper wrappers, worn, corners bumped, rear wrapper with small repair and a closed tear at rear hinge.

Signed first edition of a volume containing three of Victoria Ocampo’s first openly feminist essays. Ocampo was one of 20th-century Latin America’s most famous authors and intellectuals. In addition to her own writing, she was the founder and editor of Sur, the avantgarde literary magazine closely associated with Borges and his circle.

The present book Includes the ground-breaking title essay, originally given during a radio broadcast conference in Argentina and Spain, which seeks an autonomous feminine expression or language. Anticipating so many later philosophers, including Cixous, Ocampo described the constraints of “masculine” forms and styles and the futility of trying to write within them. She wrote: “El monólogo del hombre no me alivia ni de mis sufrimientos, ni de mis pensamientos. ¿Por qué he de resignarme a repetirlo? Tengo otra cosa que expresar. Otros sentimientos, otros dolores han destrozado mi vida, otras alegrías la han iluminado desde hace siglos.”

The final essay, “La mujer, sus derechos y sus responsabilidades,” directly addresses the evolving fight for women’s civil rights in Argentina and abroad.

$550