Estranged Mother: José Martí, the Matrixial Father in Exile

Abstract

This article questions the paternal logic of José Martí’s nationalism, through the works Abdala (1869) and Ismaelillo (1882). Martí’s nineteenth-century writing announces the creation of a Cuban nation defined by many in terms of his literary production. However, there remains another Martí, a maternal Martí that escapes our intentions to define and concretize his Work. Beginning with Bracha Ettinger’s concept of the “matrixial,” I maintain that these texts disintegrate the borders between the national body, the individual, and the writer and that this paternal Martí gives way to a maternal relation.