Mapping Violeta Parra’s Cultural Landscapes

One of the leading figures in Latin American folk music and art during her lifetime, Violeta Parra was a vital force in the artistic, musical, visual, cultural, and social cultural production of the Chilean 1960s. Fifty years after her death, she continues to deeply influence artists of the present day. This book revisits Parra’s work and legacy to illustrate her global impact across artistic and political boundaries. Contributors offer multi-disciplinary perspectives that delineate how Parra contributed to shaping and—at the same time—antagonizing, societal processes in mid-20th century Chile.

1. “Con Fuerza, Violeta Parra”: The Artist and her Legacy (Patricia Vilches)

Part I. Viola admirable: Compilation, Creation, and the Chilean Nation

2. Violeta Parra and the Chilean Folk Revival of the 1950s (Ericka Verba)

3. What Type of Music did Violeta Parra Make? Her Multiform, Musical, Authorship (Lorena Valdebenito)

4. La Violeta: Making the Transparent Opaque in Violeta Parra’s Work (Jerónimo Duarte Riascos)

5. “I Do Not Play the Guitar for Applause”: Turning the World Upside Down (Alejandro Escobar-Mundaca)

Part II. Como dijera Violeta: Expressions of her Legacy in the Twenty-First Century

6. Creator of Worlds and Songs (Juan Pablo González)

7. Violeta Went to Heaven and the Ethics of Contemporary Latin American Melodrama (Rosa Tapia)

8. Violeta Parra: Her Museum and Carpa as Spaces of Nostalgia (Patricia Vilches)

Patricia Vilches is Professor of Spanish and Italian and Scholar in Residence at Harlaxton College, UK and Professor of Spanish and Italian at Lawrence University, USA (retired). She is author of Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes: National Identity and Social Order in Chile (2017) and co-editor of Seeking Real Truths: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Machiavelli (2007).