Elvira Hernandez, Beyond The Chilean Flag

Elvira Hernandez (1951-) is one of the most interesting and innovative Latin American poets writing today. This critical edition is the first of its kind in English, collecting Hernandez’s works from 1981 to the present day. Beyond The Chilean Flag provides an indispensable insight into Chilean recent history, from The Chilean Flag, a book written and secretly distributed during Pinochet’s dictatorship, to her role as an artist and activist in the social turmoil of 2019, along with artifacts such as Cartas al azar (1989) and other scattered poems. Alongside the English translations of Hernandez’s poetry, this edition includes six compelling scholarly essays by eminent scholars and poets, offering new understandings of Hernandez’s work, including her relationship with the Chilean neo-avant-garde, how she pushed the limits of linguistic expression under dictatorship, her latest critical approach to the ecological crisis, and more, in order to consider Hernandez’s writing from a contemporary expanded context.