Female fantastic in anthologies: Gendering the genre and its discourse

Abstract

In the last decades, the fantastic literature written by women has been the subject of various studies, which, from different standpoints, have tried to investigate the characteristics of the female fantastic. In this essay, after a critical review of the most prominent theories about the so-called feminine fantastic and female writing, I will focus on the narrative strategies of the female fantastic. Through the close reading of the anthologies Tra due specchi. 18 racconti di scrittrici latinoamericane, and Insólitas. Narradoras de lo fantástico en Latinoamérica y España, I’ll try to draw a cartography of the Hispanic Fantastic short stories written by women. My goal is to verify if it is possible to identify any recurrent linguistic and rhetoric solution or if, on the contrary, the peculiarities of the female fantastic lie in its political and ideological use of fiction and in its constant subversion of literary themes, so as to undermine the patriarchal dominant discourse.