Inés Arteta recovers a feared 19th century River Plate pirate

a pirate, Marica Rivero, feared in the Río de la Plata at the end of the 19th century, has “The Malparida” (Tusquets) to the writer Ines Arteta to offer a novel where literature, violence, captivity and desire for enjoyment and survival They integrate in a captivating way. Arteta She has a degree in History (UBA), a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, and a narrator of extensive work, we spoke with her.

Ines Arteta: Forgotten? Hidden. If it was difficult for the governments of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos and Montevideo to recognize that there were pirates lurking in the Río de la Plata, it was even more difficult for them to tell that the leader of the pirates was a woman, first Micaela Taborda “La Cojuda”, then Marica Rivero “La Malparida”, feared like few others.

AI: When I found out, I was surprised they existed. I spent five years researching, tracking them and seeking to understand them. There is very little information about “La Cojuda”, however “La Malparida” is still present for the islanders of the Delta. My main source was “Ríobajo” book by Lobodón Garra, Liborio Justo, one of the seven children of General and President Agustín Pedro Justo, narrator and Marxist theorist. He notes in his book that the islanders used to talk to him about “La Malparida”, that a great-uncle or great-grandmother had known her. If the newspapers did not say anything about the pirates, it was to avoid highlighting the weakness of the Prefecture or because they were busy with the Paraguayan War.

Q: Pirates board a ship, slaughter the crew and passengers, and take the goods and two women. Why did your novel begin as a thriller?

AI: That’s how the pirate matreros acted. They expected a ship to run aground on a sandbar. The assault was a bloodbath, when they left they burned the ship. The river is full of sunken ships. If the English corsairs were “legal” pirates, those on our rivers were bands of criminals and deserters who hid in the Ibicuy where it was impossible to find them. Their way of surviving was piracy and protecting the islanders.

Q.: In that destructive and bloody way, Delgado’s gang, El Correntino Malo, takes two captives for their use.

AI: They were the only women, one with a baby, on the sloop “Ditirambo”. Marica, a young man who was a midwife, with his little daughter. As soon as they arrive at the band’s island, Delgado slits the girl’s throat because she screams a lot. Emilia Burton is an upper-class girl who traveled from Nueva Palmira to San Fernando to get married. The men in the band use them sexually, when and how they feel like it. Marica clings to Delgado, the boss, and ends up giving him orders. In captivity – ten years pass in this way – emotional dependence on the captor arises and violence is normalized as a form of self-preservation, the attachment of Stockholm Syndrome occurs. But Marica goes for more, he makes a place for himself, he wants to participate in the assaults on the ships as another member of the gang, and that is prohibited.

Q: Forbidden?

AI: They believe that women bring bad luck on ships, cause tension and distractions. Marica seeks to show that she does not have those feminine traits. When he joins in a violent confrontation he strips naked and acts as a figurehead. He says: I use my whole body to distract the enemy, I don’t bring bad luck, we won, I am more than you in every way. She advances in the performance that will lead her to be “La Malparida”.

Q: Why doesn’t Emilia follow her?

AI: They are from two worlds. Emilia finds herself locked in that microworld that not even in the greatest madness would she have dreamed of imagining. It’s not her place, she’s young, well-groomed, upper class, and she doesn’t see how to escape. That makes it adapt, submit, as a way of conservation. But desire also arises in coexistence, which makes violence much more terrible. In orgiastic moments Emilia can be with Martín, but desire Chafalote, and become erotic looking at Marica.

Q: Is the educated girl fascinated by that other girl, capable of crossing all limits?

AI: “La Malparida” is the story of a woman who looks at another who passes as a midwife, of someone who dedicates herself to giving life, to dedicating herself to giving death as her way of survival. At the same time, it is about how one woman reflects on another to seek to achieve her own independence. Hence Emilia’s admiration, amazement, at someone who is capable of practicing evil, something that she cannot process. Bruno experiences a similar situation in Cortázar’s “The Pursuer.” And it’s in Conrad, in “Heart of Darkness,” when he has Marlowe looking from the side of sanity at how Kurt dared to cross that line. Marica, La Malparida, not only crosses the limit, she wants to leave her mark.

Q: Is that why after an assault you give Emilia a log to write in?

AI: Marica wants to be the protagonist, to be in some way. They told Liborio Justo that “La Malparida” was shouting: I want people to talk about me, I want the children to be afraid of me, I want the military to be afraid of me.

Q.: In your eighth novel, did you decide to enter the tradition of Horacio Quiroga, Haroldo Conti and Liborio Justo?

AI: And in that of the captives, a very vital Argentine theme, treated by Echeverría, Borges, Eduarda Mansilla, Leopoldo Brizuela, and is in the life of Lucia Miranda annotated by Ruy Díaz de Guzmán.

Q: What are you working on now?

AI: In research on the work of Liliana Heker for my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. And I have “Las Pereira”, an unpublished work that won the First Municipal Prize for Literature. The story is set in the last years of the dictatorship and deals with the economic and financial disappearances.