"Comunicaciones de otro mundo": el silencio y la amistad en las cartas de Concha de Albornoz a Rosa Chacel

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore in depth the friendship that developed between Concha de Albornoz (1900-1972) and Rosa Chacel (1898-1994) through the analysis of the epistolary corpus comprised of the letters sent by Albornoz to Chacel between 1936 and 1971. As will be discussed, apart from the difficulties of exile, a deep sense of dislocation of time and space is expressed in their mutual correspondence, often interrupted by long periods of silence. This article proposes precisely to study these silences —which are problematic in as much as their causes are not made explicit— through a "complete" reading that considers both the periods of writing and the epistolary silences. This approach will reflect on the specificity of these silences in the light of the correspondents’ circumstances. The interruptions of correspondence will be interpreted within the framework of Derrida’s concept of differance and Steiner’s reflections on silence in literature. Taking all this into account, we will differentiate between Chacel’s "introspective silence" and Albornoz’s "resigned silence".