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This article engages key concepts in affect theory to study correspondence ex-changed within and referring to networks of women writers in nineteenth-cen-tury Lima (Matto de Turner, Cabello de Carbonera, and Gorriti). Drawing on interventions by Sarah Ahmed, Deleuze and Guattari, and Barbara Rosenwein, I study the role of emotion in creating and sustaining a close intellectual com-munity by tracing the circulation of affect in both public and private expressions of sisterhood. In particular, I highlight negative affects—envy, professional jeal-ousy—within sororal networks, and the writers’ need to control those emotions in public to exhibit solidarity to the outside world. While in the literary salon, women writers presented themselves as a cohesive sisterhood, in their secret cor-respondences with powerful male mentors (Figueroa, Palma), they expressed negative emotions such as envy and professional jealousy more freely. I argue that a close examination of these sororophobic episodes reveals the performative aspects of public sisterhood as well as the continued need at this time for women writers to secure their position at the periphery of male-centered networks.
