Pedro Lemebel and the Latin American Chronicle: Memory, Archive, Cityscape

Abstract

The following paper analyzes the importance of the chronicle in the writings of Pedro Lemebel (1952-2015). The Chilean author and performance artist embedded himself in the tradition of the Latin American chronicle and re-invented the format as radio broadcasts portraying Santiago de Chile from a queer perspective and showcasing the lives of marginalized populations. This article interprets Pedro Lemebel’s collection of chronicles De perlas y cicatrices [Of pearls and scars] by means of two concepts: ‘subterranean writing’, which aims to describe the perspective of the chronicles, and ‘ephemeral archive’, a concept that seeks to express the tension between urban transformation and testimonial memory. Departing from Pedro Lemebel, the present contribution argues in favor of a ‘memory turn’ in the Latin American tradition of chronicle writing.