Três narrativas de viajeras hispânicas: a voz de mulheres que viajam sozinhas

Abstract

This thesis examines three narratives by Hispanic female travelers who journeyed alone and produced autobiographical accounts (Lejeune, 2008) in which they narrate their experiences. The works El síndrome de París (2016), by the Argentine writer Aniko Villalba, Una viajera por Asia Central (2016), by the Spanish author Patricia Almarcegui, and El arte de viajar sola (2019), written by the Colombian Lina Maestre, constitute the corpus of this study. The central thread of the investigation is the attempt to understand how these selected writers express, in their discourse, the process of self-discovery and the encounter with a renewed version of themselves after their journeys. Furthermore, through the analysis of the paratexts (Genette, 2010) of these works, this study evaluated the possibility of outlining an architextual classification of travel accounts authored by women. The research began with a bibliographical review relevant to the field of study and an examination of scholarly works addressing the relationship between women and travel. Subsequently, a paratextual approach to the selected works was undertaken, focusing on the process of meaning-making through the analysis of their paratexts, which allowed attention to be centered on the general aspects of the publication of these books. A qualitative analysis of the narrative texts themselves followed, aimed at identifying marks of subjectivity and investigating whether (and how) a process of identity reconstruction or self-discovery is present in the authors’ discourse. Finally, comparative and contrastive analyses of the elements identified in the critical/analytical reading were carried out, moving the study beyond the search for the specificities of each book and toward their interweaving. As a result of these analyses, it became evident that this perspective remains underexplored and that the theme lacks studies that present female-authored travel accounts to the academic community. By introducing into this universe the voices of three women who travel alone, we found that the analyzed works deviate from the established model, both in the paratextual and narrative fields, by incorporating into their graphic design elements such as illustrated and colorful covers – except for Una viajera por Asia Central (2016), which aligns with an editorial proposal – photographs, and numerous markers of subjectivity as central elements of the travel experience. This, in a way, constitutes a feminine architext of contemporary autobiographical travel narratives and challenges traditional paradigms.