Tununa mercado biography channel

Peter Robertson

Tununa Mercado’s memoir, In a State of Memory, recounts the pain of exile and the even greater pain of return. Mercado, an Argentine writer, experienced two periods of exile: the first, in the wake of the 1966 coup, was spent in France and lasted for three years; during the second period, spanning 1974 to 1986, she lived with her family in Mexico.

Mercado is particularly engaging when she describes the dislocation of the so-called “ArgenMex”, those Argentines forced into exile in Mexico after political upheaval back home had ushered in the “de facto” regime.

While some of these “ArgenMex” succeed in bridging the cultural divide, most cling to their national heritage, hanging up the Argentine flag in their living-rooms and turning up their noses at fríjoles. During this exile, Mercado writes for Ovidio Gondi’s political journal, seeks to ward off alienation—and per