Woman's Abject Body

Vaca Sagrada (1991) was the first novel published by Eltit during the Transition and it occupies an anomalous position within the trajectory of her narrative. It was the first of her novels to be published outside Chile (in Buenos Aires) and was widely marketed by the publishing house Planeta as part of the boom of the nueva narrativa, a term generally used to describe the literary work of young Chilean authors who emerged at the beginning of the 1990s. The provenance and composition of the nueva narrativa have been widely debated in recent years, and many writers and critics in Chile, including Eltit, agree that the disparate quality and diverse thematic and stylistic preoccupations of the novels included under the label throw into question the bracketing together of authors whose differences far outweigh their similarities. As a result, the concept of the nueva narrativa has come to be seen as a marketing ploy on the part of the publishers Planeta and Alfaguara, who were successful, for a limited time, in achieving increased sales of contemporary Chilean novels to a notoriously small reading public in Chile.

Eltit has stated that her novel emerged at a time of great transition in her life. She has spoken of the personal, psychic and territorial changes that formed the backdrop to her writing, including her departure from Chile to take up the post of Chilean Cultural Attaché in Mexico City. The novel's title, comments Eltit, alludes to the double-edged meaning of the phrase ‘vaca sagrada’ (sacred cow), which simultaneously implies reverence and degradation. While it is used figuratively to imply a powerful or revered person, custom or institution, Eltit notes that women are often insulted through the use of animal names: ‘Siempre la mujer es definida, popular o cotidianamente, con el nombre de un animal: “es una mula, es una vaca, es una yegua, es una perra”. Entonces, okey: la mujer es una vaca … pero sagrada.’