The Female Body

Including both narratives and visual texts by and about Latina women, Amador G mez-Quintero and Perez Bustillo address the question of how women represent themselves. Utilizing paintings, novels, photographs, memoirs, and diaries this work examines the depiction of the female body in 20th-century creative expression. From writers such as Julia Alvarez and Christina Garcia to artists including Frida Kahlo and Ana Mendieta, it provides both a broad outline and a finely detailed exploration of how a largely overlooked community of creative women have seen, drawn, photographed, and written about their own experience.

The authors discuss women as both agent and subject of artistic representation often comparing both fictional and nonfictional versions of the same woman. Not only do they analyze Elena Poniatowska's "Dear Diego," which centers on artist Angelina Beloff, but they also analyze Beloff's own memoirs. Continuing in this style, they make further comparisons between Frida Kahlo's "Diary" and visual images of her body. Connections such as these are what make their work not merely an articulation of imagery but an explanation of ideas.

RAYSA E. AMADOR GOMEZ-QUINTERO, is an Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Literature, and Director of the Latin American Program at Adelphi University. She is the author ofUna Aproximacion Historica a los Comentarios Reales.

MIREYA PEREZ BUSTILLO is an Associate Professor of Spanish at the College of New Rochelle, and a University Associate at New York University. She is the author ofCarreras: Casos en la Comunidad and La Picara y la Dama.