“Staying away from the madding crowd”: authorship and visibility regime in Ena Lucía Portela

Abstract

Considering the fact that the Cuban writer Ena Lucía Portela (1972) has not published an unpublished work for more than 10 years and has not participated in public activities, being confined at home, I present an approach to the construction of her image / position as an author based on the idea, and following Natalie Heinich, that in the case of Ena Lucía Portela there is an “enigmatization” of the author, that is built from an (in)visibility regime of media, in which the enigmas of her health and of her next novel function as one of the main engines of discursive production around her authorial image, in the construction of her portrait as an author. For this I use different texts that are inscribed in these forms of life writings, in those experiential and self-referential narratives, particularly: the essays and its explanatory notes of her book Con hambre y sin dinero (2017) and some interviews and biographical sketch.