Ariel Godoy Astica and the birth of the homosexual tale in Chile

Abstract

This article refers to the birth of the homosexual story in Chile and presents an investigative finding in the story “Algo extraño” (December 20th 1959) by the Chilean narrator Ariel Godoy Astica. Along with “La mala ventura de Nanito Velásquez” (1959) by Edesio Alvarado, this story can be considered the first, in the form of a short story, within Chilean letters, where a link with homosexual culture is openly shown. Regarding the fable, Godoy Astica’s narration introduces us to its protagonist Camilo, a seventeen-year-old boy, who feels “somewhat strange” for Dalzare, another thirteen-year-old boy; the strange thing is the passion of love. The story, whose central theme is falling in love, presents this form of homosexual love in a romantic, pure and platonic way. To articulate its narrative universe, this story, as in some of the previous moments of Chilean literature (poetry and novel), resorts to sublimation to publicize the relational experiences of homosexual living, escaping the ruggedness of a degraded social environment. and degrading. With this story by Godoy Astica, homosexual literature is reaffirmed as a testimony and expression of the subaltern, the sublime, although without touching fantasy (Sutherland 2001).