(Auto)figures of a critic: Ricardo Piglia, the diary and the critic

Abstract

The present work aims to investigate a certain figuration of Ricardo Piglia as a literary critic at the intersection between two fields of his writing: both his participation as an editor in the magazine Los Libros (1969-1976), and the diary entries in his work Los diarios de Emilio Renzi (2015-2017), with a special focus on the first volume, Años de formación. The author's critical and theoretical production in these two vehicles appears under a strong influence that echoes his repertoire of youth: French critical theory, which contaminated Argentine production in the 1960s and 1970s. Through analyses and reviews published in the magazine, as well as specific entries in the diary, it is possible to observe the figuration of an author-critic that travels through Piglia's formative periods. In these productions, whose literary influence includes Roland Barthes and other authors of "telquelisme", we are interested in locating such figuration and analyzing how it directly dialogues with the different French legacies of his time, both in the field of literary theory and criticism and in the political positions that are transported into the text.