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A New Collection of Children's Books Intends to Subvert Your Ideas of Princesses

Categories: Latin America, Argentina, Citizen Media, Literature, Women & Gender

Princesses vs. Extraordinary women. Stories inspired by Frida Kahlo and Violeta Parra.

The Argentinian publishing house Sudestada has launched a collection [4] of children's books titled “Anti-Princesses” that highlight as their main characters the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and the Chilean composer Violeta Parra.

The heroines of these stories neither live in castles nor wait for their charming prince to come and rescue them. The only thing that have in common is that they're Latin Americans who escaped the clichés of their time.

Nadia Fink [5], the author of these illustrated works, says [6] these figures from Latin American history offered the perfect contrast to European tales of princesses:

“Las Antiprincesas seguirán siendo latinoamericanas porque decidimos contar la historia de Nuestra América, en un continente que nos late y nos identifica. Un poco es contraponerlos a los relatos de las princesas en un entorno continental de Europa, alejado de nuestra cultura y nuestro paisaje”.

The Anti-Princesses will keep being Latin American because we decided to tell the story of our America, in a continent that makes us keep our feelings flowing towards it and that gives us our identity. We tried to contrast them a little bit with the princesses’ tales in Europe, far away from our culture and our landscape.