5. La Llorona
Kirsty Logan explores the evolution of perhaps the most iconic ghost in Latin American culture - La Llorona, the weeping woman.
Illustration by Seonaid Mackay
'She was banished, condemned to wander the earth for all eternity, dressed in a long white veil, weeping and searching for her lost children. And if she can鈥檛 find them, perhaps she鈥檒l take yours instead鈥�'
The classic tale of La Llorona is the story of an irredeemable traitor, and monstrous mother. A woman who took a man into her bed, even though he had collonised her people's land, only to murder their children when he left her for a Spanish lady who was more useful to him in society. When she tried to enter heaven, she was turned away and condemned to forever search for the souls of her children.
Such a ghost is horrific, and yet La Llorona has evolved in a way that other ghosts simply cannot do. When a ghost story no longer serves a purpose in our culture, it dies off to be replaced with another, yet Kirsty Logan reveals how the Weeping Woman is fluid, and ever changeable, going from an ancient powerful goddess, to the arch traitor, to symbol of unity for a scattered people.
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Alicia Gaspar de Alba - Kyrie Eleison for La Llorona
Duration: 16:05
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Alicia Gaspar de Alba - La Llorona on the railways
Duration: 02:52
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The Multitude of La Lloronas
Duration: 01:18
Alicia Gaspar de Alba - Kyrie Eleison for La Llorona
Our Extra聽Interview today is .
A native of the El Paso/Ju谩rez border, Alicia is a Chicana writer/scholar/activist who uses prose, poetry, and theory for social change. With a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico, Alicia is a Professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies at UCLA, where she has taught since 1994, when she was hired as a founding faculty member of the C茅sar E. Ch谩vez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. She served as Chair of Chicana/o Studies from 2007-2010, and since 2013, has been the Chair of the LGBT Studies Program.
鈥淕aspar,鈥� as her students call her, has published 11 books, among them, the award-winning novels, Sor Juana鈥檚 Second Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 1999), which was named Best Historical Fiction by the Latino Literary Hall of Fame in 2000, and Desert Blood: The Ju谩rez Murders (Arte Publico Press 2005), which received both the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery in 2005 and the Latino Book Award for Best English-language Mystery in 2006. Her most recent historical novel, Calligraphy of the Witch, about a mestiza immigrant from New Spain accused of witchcraft in the New England witch trials of 1692, was published by St. Martin鈥檚 Press in 2007, and released in paperback by Arte Publico Press in 2012. Other creative publications include two collections of poetry, La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge: poetry y otras m贸vidas (Arte Publico Press 2003).
Alicia shares her experiences of La Llorona throughout her life, from a shadowy partner in a game of tag, to a way to embrace a forbidden identity and then as a lifelong artistic muse. She shares one of her many poems about the Weeping Woman 鈥楰yrie Eleison for La Llorona鈥�.
Broadcasts
- Fri 23 Oct 2020 13:45大象传媒 Radio 4
- Fri 8 Oct 2021 14:45大象传媒 Radio 4