SOURCE: “Manuel Puig: The Masks and the Myths,” in World Literature Today, Vol. 65, No. 4, Autumn, 1991, pp. 643-47.

In the following essay, Jozee traces Puig's narrative technique and the author's presentation of myth in his work.

When I met Manuel Puig in 1971, he had already published two of his eight novels, La traición de Rita Hayworth (1968; Eng. Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, 1971) and Boquitas pintadas (1969; Eng. Heartbreak Tango, 1973). From that point onward until his death we corresponded, and for a time we resided in the same city, Rio de Janeiro, a fact that occasioned my sharing in the creation of his books by reading, offering opinions on, and reviewing many of his original works before their publication. In the following article I maintain the basic interpretation postulated in previous studies dealing with aspects of the meaning of Manuel Puig's universe, which I now reexamine with new considerations.¹

Fundamental to...