SOURCE: de Rodríguez, Mercedes M. “Oneiric Riddles in Peri Rossi's La nave de los locos.” RLA 1 (1989): 521–27.

In the following essay, Rodríguez provides a psychoanalytic perspective on the theme of exile in La nave de los locos.

La nave de los locos has been generally acknowledged as Cristina Peri Rossi's consummate novel on the subject of exile, a persistent theme in her previous works, particularly in her poetry and short stories. It seems pertinent to observe, however, that Peri Rossi renders in this novel her account of two different kinds of exile by means of a rhetorical mode of discourse. At one level, she deals with exile as banishment from one's homeland, while at another, she alludes to a more subtle form of exile, ascribing to the word the meaning of marginality to refer to the position adjudicated by men to women in the history of civilization...