New Edition of Elisa Clark’s «Oye Gabriela» Explores Gabriela Mistral’s Manuscripts and the Battles Over Her Legacy

Cuarto Propio has released a new edition of «Oye Gabriela» by Elisa Clark, a 204-page novel that delves into Gabriela Mistral’s manuscripts and the disputes over her legacy following the death of Doris Dana—Mistral’s literary executor, heir, and companion.

The novel opens during Chile’s 2010 earthquake, when a researcher becomes trapped inside Santiago’s Central Library. By then, Mistral’s papers had already been donated to the Chilean state, and public debate over her sexuality had erupted in the media—a controversy that continues to resurface.

From there, the author builds a polyphonic narrative, revealing how academic ambition, ideological battles, and the drive to spotlight fresh interpretations converge around the documents.

The book has drawn wide praise. Cultural critic and columnist Daniel Noemi writes that «Elisa Clark’s Oye Gabriela laughs—out loud—at those twists and turns; from that theme it erupts and multiplies its meanings and insights, becoming a disarming, funny, and profound text-collage.»

For her part, Bernadita Domange—university lecturer and scholar of Gabriela Mistral’s work—observes that «its protagonists are as varied as they are contradictory… they are swept up by the Mistral papers, vie for them, steal incomplete letters, slip unpublished poems into posthumous works, read and reread to find the most avant-garde, most queer interpretation, and hide or deliberately deny them to conceal irrefutable, uncomfortable truths that are hard to digest.»

Launch details for «Oye Gabriela»

-Wednesday, October 15, 6:00 p.m. Aula Magna UAH
-Presenters: Soledad Bianchi and Juan José Adriasola
-Avda. Bernardo O´Higgins 1825, Santiago
-Book funded by the National Council for Books and Reading
2024 Call

The presentation is part of the gathering «Other Complicit Words: Mistral, 80 Years After the Nobel,» organized by Universidad Alberto Hurtado on October 15 and 16. The event will bring together women writers, scholars, artists, and musicians to revisit the life and work of Gabriela Mistral through critical, feminist, and contemporary lenses.

The program includes a keynote by Raquel Olea; the panel «De la madre de la patria a la Gabriela cuir» («From Mother of the Nation to a Queer Gabriela») with Bernardita Domange, Macarena Urzúa, Zenaida Suárez, and Yocelyn Valdebenito; and a tribute to the book «Una palabra cómplice» with Raquel Olea, Soledad Fariña, and Eliana Ortega. There will also be an interdisciplinary creation panel with Luis Valenzuela, Fab Ciraollo, and Jessica Sequeira, followed by a closing performance featuring musical settings and spoken renditions of Mistral’s poems by the Orquesta de Poetas.

See the full program of the event HERE

About the author

Elisa Clark (Santiago, 1973). Under this pen name, the author developed the platform El Paper Magazine in New York, Santiago, and Caracas, focusing on visual arts and creative writing.

She also produced two CDs born from collaborations between poets and musicians. Her work Oye Gabriela, first published in 2020, was completed during a residency at the Gabriela Mistral Museum in Vicuña. Earlier, she published the travel novel Standby (2012) under another poetic identity.

She began performing at the Performagia Festival (Mexico) in the early 2000s. Her creative practice bridges literature, sound art, and performance, pushing the boundaries between reality and fiction.

El Ciudadano