Desire and Curiosity in En Diciembre llegaban las brisas

Abstract

Marvel Moreno’s En diciembre llegaban las brisas is one of Colombia’s least studied masterpieces. Critical attention on her work has focused on the fraught interaction between female sexuality and patriarchal forces in society. However, while female sexual desire plays a key role in the novel, it is not the most important type of desire in the text. This article analyzes the various types of desire in En diciembre llegaban las brisas. It finds that curiosity (desire for knowledge) plays an essential role in the narrator’s emotional and artistic apprenticeship and is the novel’s structural principle. This understanding of curiosity in terms of desire sheds new light on Moreno’s work and could prove useful in the study of other similarly autobiographical texts.