Argentina: Stories for a Nation

By Amy K. Kaminsky

University of Minnesota Press

Argentina: Stories for a Nation is an intriguing portrait of a country, told through author Amy Kaminsky's analysis of Argentina’s presence in literary texts from around the world, and from Argentina itself. Through letters and films, jokes and novels, the country’s tumultuous history is revealed. We learn of Spanish colonialists' uneasy relationship with their adopted country's indigenous past; curious conflations of "Argentina" with "South America" or even "the Americas" that give some credence to Argentina's historical reputation of self-centeredness; efforts at making the country more "European," and then further, seemingly contradictory efforts to make European immigrants more "Argentinean." Exactly what "Argentinean" means though, is an ongoing question—and that's Kaminsky's conclusion.

I greatly enjoyed the book's creative (and feminist!) interpretations of interchanges between historical figures. Letters from the past are dredged up and put into context and, as hokey as it sounds, the past comes alive. Particularly revealing and enjoyable was Kaminsky's retelling of the relationship between the influential Argentinian intellectual and publisher Victoria Ocampo and English novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf. 

Ocampo may have dressed in Chanel and tried her hardest to look European, but she was also only too happy to feed Woolf's fantasies of her country as an exotic and untamed wilderness, because that’s what she knew Woolf wanted from Argentina—and from Ocampo herself. Kaminsky points out that Ocampo also enjoyed shocking her racist, sexist Argentinean peers with shameless allusions to her indigenous roots. Ocampo revealed different aspects of herself—colonizer, colonized, or a proud and troubled mixture of both—depending on her audience. We can't begin to truly understand her without seeing both her own self-image and the interpretations of it preserved through Woolf's writings and letters. Kaminsky shows us that the identity of Ocampo's country is equally complex, a multifaceted cultural meaning that is not determined just by Argentina itself, but by those abroad who, with their references to it in art and film and writing, help create the country's identity and meaning.

Argentina: Stories for a Nation is as dense and thorough as an academic literature review, a walk through history peppered with poetically rambling interpretations and charming parenthetical asides from the author. In the end, not one of the hundreds of sources Kaminsky found can offer us a definitive idea of what Argentina is. She shows us that Argentina’s story is one you must read between the lines, one that emerges from the dialogue of myth and history.

Review by Ari Moore