Story of a Trifle: Irma Sabina Sepúlveda against Vida Universitaria Newspaper

Abstract

In 1968 the weekly Vida Universitaria [University Life], a news outlet of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, banned the publication of a short story written by Irma Sabina Sepúlveda, a nationally awarded writer and regular columnist
of the weekly. The reason for this was the fictional story explored an episode in Gregorio Lemercier’s life, a pioneer in psychoanalysis in Mexico, when he was visiting the city of Monterrey. This article reconstructs Sepúlveda’s professional career and examines her relationship with this publication in detail. Thus, it explores this apparently insignificant act of censorship in the cultural history of the university contributing to an understanding of Sepúlveda’s public retirement in the 1970s, after having been one of the most prominent writers of the second half of the twentieth century in Mexico.