Between memory and literature: Two essential texts of Argentine children´s literature prohibited during the last dictatorship

Abstract

This study describes the prohibition of two emblematic texts of Argentine children's literature as works reviewing the past (Jelin, 2002). The overall aim is to answer two questions: why were these texts banned during Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983)? Which has been their importance in the history of children's literature? We analyze certain social and cultural elements that applied in the sixties and seventies during the publication of La torre de cubos by Laura Devetach in 1966 and Un elefante ocupa mucho espacio by Elsa Bornemann in 1975. The study around these decades starts from two key facts: first, to consider banning as one of the mechanisms of control by the dictatorial regime. On the other hand, we understand that the displacement of fictional modes that these texts represent, along with the work by Maria Elena Walsh, led to the beginning of modernization of Argentine children's literature. This shift can identify the violation of social and cultural features as one of the main operations of fiction to define the relationship between children and literature.