Memory and Postmemory in El taller [The Workshop] by Nona Fernández: the Representation of the Dictatorship through Metafiction and Autofiction

Abstract

Nona Fernandez (1971) is a well-known Chilean writer associated with the generation “de los hijos” [literature of sons and daughters]: writers born  and/or raised during the dictatorship years, who started publishing in the post-dictatorship era. Most of their production is about the historical  memory of their country’s recent past. In the play El taller (2012), Fernandez reflects a particular chapter of the relationship between art, dictatorship, and memory in Chile: the case of writer and agent Mariana Callejas and the literary workshop she directed in her home/intelligence headquarters-torture center. This paper presents an interpretative analysis of how this episode –previously visited by a Pedro Lemebel’s chronicle and by a Roberto Bolaño’s novel– is revisited by playwright Nona Fernandez, who uses strategies such as metafiction, autofiction and literary hybrid genres to discuss memory from the contemporary scenic art.