Avowal of Difference

The Avowal of Difference explores the potentialities and limitations that queer theory offers in the context of Latino American texts and subjects. Ben. Sifuentes-Jauregui contrasts Latino American sexual genealogies with the Anglo-European 'coming out' narrative-and interrogates the centrality of the 'coming out' story as the regulating metaphor for gay, lesbian, or queer identities. In its place, the book looks at other strategies-from silence to circumlocution, from disavowal to indifference-to theorize queer subject formation in a Latino American cultural context. The analysis of texts by Jose Lezama Lima, Luis Zapata, Manuel Puig, Severo Sarduy, Junot Diaz, and others offers a comparative approach to understanding how queer sexualities are shaped and written in other cultural contexts.