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María Elena Walsh reinvented the genre of children's literature in Argentina. Writing under a series of repressive governments, Walsh exploited the perceived innocence of children's literature, utilizing it as a conduit to criticize authority, while never abandoning her young readers. In her novel Dailan Kifki, the young, female protagonist is the sole voice of reason-a tribute to Louis Carroll's Alice-who provide young readers with new ways of perceiving the world.
It is unusual for a children's book author to ascend to the position of national democratic hero and poet laureate of the imagination, but that is precisely what Mar?a Elena Walsh, born February 1, 1930 in Ramos Mej?a on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, accomplished during her lifetime. As a feminist, singer, folklorist, and legendary author, Walsh is remembered both as an outspoken critic of authoritarianism and a champion of children. Her entire life-and extensive oeuvre for chil- dren-was shaped by her experiences under the alternating horrors of repressive military and populist civilian governments, beginning with General Jos? F?lix Uriburu's coup in the year of her birth, through the dashed promises of the Per?n era, to the ruthless military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s (Romero 93-94; 215-16). In the shadow of these events and over the course of her life, Walsh was to transform the genre of children's literature in Argentina.
What makes Walsh's work all the more astounding is that she not only rejected the didacticism that had dominated children's liter- ature in Latin America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries (Mu?oz 592), but blazed an entirely new creative and theoretical path by drawing inspiration from the two great Victo- rian nonsense writers for children, Edward Lear and Lewis carroll (Orrigi de Monge 38). One of the finest examples of her carrollian work is the novel Dailan Kif ki, first published in 1966. In Dailan Kif ki, as in her other works, Walsh utilizes nonsense words and hyperbolic situations to subtly suggest that authority is not immutable and unquestionable, that what seems logical is sometimes-in fact-upside-down, and that adults do not always have all of the answers.
Employing both close reading and cultural materialism, I consider the interaction between the literary nonsense in Walsh's books, paying attention to both transgressive themes...