'Described as “the platypus of prose”, crónicas are a genre that combines journalistic reporting, social commentary, humour and fiction. In his chapter, Jacklin surveys the scholarship focusing on this phenomenon of the Latin American press and then turns to examine crónicas in the Australian newspaper El Expreso, published for only a few months in 1979. Though short-lived, El Expreso offered an alternative to Australia’s existing Spanish-language press. Its inclusion of Luis Abarca’s Crónicas de un Blady Woggie, along with cronicas by Uruguayan-born Alberto Domínguez, and those by UK-born academic John Brotherton marked the newspaper as radical. A focus on these crónicas provides opportunity to investigate the role of this unique genre in the migrant press, and its contribution to the negotiation of Spanish-language Australian identities.'
Source: Abstract.
Reflections on the challenges faced and the achievements of El Expreso thus far.
In this instalment of 'Comentarios de un Blady Woggie', Abarca describes a staff meeting at El Expreso held to discuss correspondence from readers. One reader suggested changing the name from 'El Expreso' to 'El Tren de los Curados'. John [Brotherton] doesn't understand what the suggestion implies, until Abarca explains that in Chile there are two weekend night trains, one 'El Expreso' runs for 2,000 kilometres with only three stops. The other 'El Tren de los Curados' stops at every donkey crossing and is filled with drunks. This anecdote leads into an account of the other letters of objection that the paper has received. Two were directed towards the 'Blady Woggie' columns, a third in regards to sports coverage (with the correspondent correcting the details of an altercation between football players), and a fourth raised feminist objections to the content of the 'Women's page'. Another reader objects to the lack of coverage of news from Colombia, saying that the staff are all Uruguayans, Spaniards and Chileans.
Alejandro Arellano writes of his hopes for this new Spanish-language newspaper, for which he will be the Victorian correspondent.
Dominguez discusses the offer he has received to write a column for the new Spanish-language newspaper El Expreso. The representative of the newspaper has even offered to obtain him a typewriter (second hand) which has the letter ñ.
Alejandro Arellano writes of his hopes for this new Spanish-language newspaper, for which he will be the Victorian correspondent.
In this instalment of 'Comentarios de un Blady Woggie', Abarca describes a staff meeting at El Expreso held to discuss correspondence from readers. One reader suggested changing the name from 'El Expreso' to 'El Tren de los Curados'. John [Brotherton] doesn't understand what the suggestion implies, until Abarca explains that in Chile there are two weekend night trains, one 'El Expreso' runs for 2,000 kilometres with only three stops. The other 'El Tren de los Curados' stops at every donkey crossing and is filled with drunks. This anecdote leads into an account of the other letters of objection that the paper has received. Two were directed towards the 'Blady Woggie' columns, a third in regards to sports coverage (with the correspondent correcting the details of an altercation between football players), and a fourth raised feminist objections to the content of the 'Women's page'. Another reader objects to the lack of coverage of news from Colombia, saying that the staff are all Uruguayans, Spaniards and Chileans.
Reflections on the challenges faced and the achievements of El Expreso thus far.
