Estado de exilio (2003) de Cristina Peri Rossi: publication, versions and ways to poetize the experience of exile

Abstract

In 2003, Cristina Peri Rossi won the Rafael Alberti Poetry Prize with Estado de exilio. In these pages we will try to investigate this extemporaneous book –in terms of its publication, but not in terms of its writing– from various perspectives. Firstly, we focus on why it is extemporaneous, and we relate it to other collections of poems by exiled Latin American authors that deal with the same theme and whose publication coincides temporarily with the writing of the Uruguayan book. Next, we analyze the various versions that we know of the book and the consequences that derive from it: the publication of some poems in the newspaper Triunfo (1978), those included in the anthology Las voces distantes (1985), the first publication of the book, in the editorial Visor (2003), and the edition in Poesía reunida (2005). Finally, we will delve into the way in which the Uruguayan author recreates the anguish of exile through verse, what are the most recurrent themes and how they are developed by Cristina Peri Rossi to finally address one of the issues in which critics has abounded when referring to this collection of poems, and announces its title, the state of exile