ABSTRACT
In 2008, the Chilean novelist Patricio Jara wrote an article for the El Sábado insert of El Mercurio titled “Freak Power” (2008) in which he introduced Chile to a group of writers whose first novels challenged the traditional themes and strategies of Chilean literature. The construction of the group as iconoclastic occurs on two levels, the first with a presentation of a view of “traditional” Chilean literature, ironically the kind of literature focused on memory, identity and trauma that began as an attempt to disrupt official versions of Chilean culture and identity supported by the Pinochet dictatorship. By 2008, this literature had, according to the version propagated by “Freak Power,” become the official version of Chilean literature, at least as considered by academics and popular critics. Dichotomies are lousy at describing what’s really going on, but they do make for good marketing and in the case of the selling of these writers, it has served remarkably well.
