The New York Times

BUENOS AIRES — At book fairs all over Latin America these days, the heavyweight novelists who have dominated Spanish-language literature for a generation are no longer the star attraction. More often than not, fascinated readers in search of autographs are flocking to an intense, 40-ish woman with spiky, punkish blond hair, a dark, raspy voice and just one name: Maitena.

The name means "the most beloved" in Basque, and to legions of women across Latin America the cartoonist Maitena has become a cherished friend and advocate. Working first through a syndicated comic strip and now in two best-selling series of books (compilations of the comic strips) that together have sold nearly a million copies worldwide, she has articulated their hopes and fears with wit and compassion.

"Women are not all the same, but the same things happen to us," Maitena (pronounced my-TAY-na) said during an interview at her apartment here. "I talk about solitude, separation, falling in love, anguish, failure, success, children, universal themes that everyone experiences."

Maitena's admirers regard her as a cultural phenomenon that simply could have not existed 15 years ago. Louise Mereles Gras, editorial director of the Mexican edition of Marie-Claire magazine, talks about "a generational transition" of mores and values occurring throughout the region that finds expression in Maitena's work.

"Hers is a unique voice in Latin American society, looking at women's issues with a sense of humor, humanity and frankness, and touching on topics that are not usually talked about," said Ms. Mereles Gras, 32, whose magazine publishes Maitena's work in Mexico and the United States. "I don't, for example, see my mother or my aunt buying her books. She appeals especially to a younger crowd, women under 40 who identify with her and the way she breaks the mold."

A typical Maitena comic strip enumerates the types of "Men you have to leave before it is too late." or offers "Six brief but suspect reflections" on breasts. Though her audience is primarily female, the popularity of her biting, satiric appraisal of the sexes and their relations increasingly cuts across gender lines, as Latin American men, too, have begun to parse her comic strips for clues to the female psyche.

"Spontaneous and direct, Maitena doesn't aspire to be a mirror reflecting reality," Quino, the Argentine cartoonist who is the creator of Mafalda, a Little Lulu-like character popular throughout Latin America, wrote in the introduction to her first book. "On the contrary: she grabs hold of reality, mirror and all, and throws it at our heads."

Maitena, whose full name is Maitena Burundarena, was born here in 1962, the sixth of seven children in a family of striving professionals. Her mother is an architect of Polish descent; her Basque father was a conservative academic who served as minister of education in the last of the military governments to rule Argentina in the early 1980's.

"There would be nine of us seated at the table, and I was placed at the far end, with the little kids," she recalled of her family life. "The only way to get my father to pay attention to me was to say something interesting or funny or so noteworthy that he'd have to take me into account, and so that's what I did."

At 17 she rebelled against her upbringing by getting pregnant and giving birth to a daughter. She married a year later, and at 19 had a son.

When asked why she married so young, she replied, "Because he understood my jokes." She then waits two beats just as a stand-up comedian would, and delivered her punch line: "Unfortunately, that's the only thing about me that he understood."

The marriage lasted until she was 24, though, and was followed by several years of what she described as "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," which left an abiding affection for punk music and fashion. Forced to earn a living, Maitena began working as a graphic designer, drawing for whoever would hire her, a woman trying to make her way in what was then a man's field.

Early on, Maitena gained a certain notoriety here as the designer for erotic magazines with names like Sex Humor. But she also illustrated textbooks and a pamphlet explaining a new constitution.

"At the time I did that, it was important to me, like an apprenticeship for what I am doing now," she said of the erotic cartoons. "I learned the freedom of daring, of being able to call up things from my own interior, and that gave me the background I needed so that when I began to recount things about women, I already knew how to be sincere."

In 1993 a leading women's magazine here, Para Ti, invited her to draw a weekly cartoon strip. Five years later, with her appeal expanding and eager for a new challenge, she began drawing a daily strip for La Nación, the most traditional and conservative of Argentina's daily newspapers.

Eventually the success of the comic strips led to proposals to publish her panels in book form, which quickly became best sellers. There are now two books in the "Striving Women" series and five in what has become known as the "Mujeres Alteradas" or "Altered Women" series, the word alterada meaning not only changed but also agitated, disturbed, upset or irritated.

"To me an altered woman is one who has all of these battlefields open at the same time," Maitena explained. "We've got work, men, maternity, our body, our friends, our mothers, a whole bunch of things, and that's what puts us in an altered state, in which we can go from euphoria to a depressed crying jag in 15 minutes."

More recently Maitena's comic strip and books have also gained her a following in Europe, with translations into French, Italian, German, Greek and Dutch. "It all takes place in Buenos Aires, but it could just as well be Paris, Madrid or Rome," said a review of the "Altered Women" series published in the French newspaper Libération.

In the United States, Spanish speakers have access to Maitena's work through the Mexican edition of Marie-Claire and her books. But she has not yet not broken through to the larger English-speaking public and does not seem obsessed with the idea of doing so.

Rather than aggressively pursue the opportunities that are coming her way, Maitena has chosen to scale back and enjoy her success. She and her husband, Daniel Kon, formerly the manager of Soda Stereo and other Latin American rock groups, have for the past two years divided their time between their apartment here and a house in a small seaside village in Uruguay "where relations are based on one's personality and not on fame," she said.

"There's a bit of fleeing from the world in living there, but it's because we've found a life that appeals to us," she explained. "It's a fishing village. I have my own garden. I can cook for myself. I make ceviche and sashimi. I walk on the beach for an hour every day and play with my daughter," Antonia, who is 4.

"Anything that wrenches me from my routine right now is not of interest to me," she added. "They've offered me film scripts to write and animated films to draw, but I'm not going to change my life for that. Who says the better you're doing the more you have to work?"

The New York Times
LARRY ROHTER
Date of release: 23 march 2004