As the great crónista Martín Caparrós once said: “Faced with the current media ideology, which tries to impose neutral language without a subject, which disguises itself as pure bearer of 'the reality', the Crónica that I am interested in uses the first-person not to talk about oneself but to point out there is a person who is watching, and who is telling the story. Believe him if you want, but never trust that what the person says is 'the reality'—it is only one of many possible points of view, and that's what makes the Crónica so political.”
The “crónica” has become the great genre of journalism in Latin America. Diverse, broadly free: it is the informative piece that uses the resources and techniques of fiction. In English, it is perhaps more commonly known as narrative journalism, literary journalism, or, simply creative nonfiction. But the crónica is something much bigger. Crónica is about the facts, but it is also about the person who tells the story. It can be emotional, resilient, empathic, and also political.
Writers in this two-hour class can expect to learn what is a crónica is, what it's not, and how to identify a good story to write a crónica. We'll also write some in-class paragraphs of a short crónica (so, writers: bring ideas and some researching notes about something you are interested in!). Writers will receive oral feedback from the instructor. Our references will be some of the best crónicas (translated from Spanish): Rodolfo Walsh’s "Operation Massacre", Martín Caparrós’ "Hunger," Leila Guerriero’s "The Trace in the Bones," and Javier Sinay's "Fast. Furious. Dead," published in Rolling Stone Argentina. Writers in this class will be asked to read some of these pieces before the meeting.
