“La caza del autor”: autoría e imagen en las ficciones autorales de Emma de la Barra/César Duayén

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the connections between authorship and image in the Press articles and reviews that followed Emma de la Barra's first novel's publication, Stella (1905), between 1905 and 1908. Previously a well-known Buenos Aires high society member, De la Barra, who used the male pseudonym Cesar Duayén to publish throughout her career, soon became a celebrated author after her novel turned into a tremendous selling success, the first in Argentinean literature history. Published mainly in Caras y Caretas, La Nación, P.B.T, and El Diario, most of those articles included several photos and caricatures of her. Considering that, this article means to outline De la Barra's authorial fictions developed by the image of herself that the early-twentieth-century Press projected through her pictures and cartoons. It is argued that the writer played an active part in those representations, particularly by examining the publicity strategies she developed to promote Stella.