Crossing the threshold: exile and literature in "El Canto del peregrino" (1999) by Angelina Mu��iz-Huberman

This paper analyses the relation between exile and literature in Angelina Mu��iz-Huberman���s work El canto del peregrino. In this collection of essays, the Spanish-Mexican writer, member of the second generation of Spanish Republican exiles in Mexico, outlines a poetics of exile. From the outset, the relation between exile and literature is presented in terms of identity: while defining exile as ���literary form���, the book tends to prefer a metaphorical concept of exile over ���merely��� historical or referential approaches to it. More in particular, this paper will examine how the author constructs an identity of ���exiled writer��� based on the close association between exile and literature on the one hand, and on the view of exile as ���home��� or ���dwelling���, on the other hand. A second point of interest concerns the discursive impact of this literary and metaphorical concept of exile and the author���s personal experience. A brief analysis of the essayist���s discursive voice and her writing practice shows how Mu��iz-Huberman gives shape to an intrinsically complex and paradoxical view on exile.