internal focalization, whether fixed, variable or multiple, in which the narrator tells what such a character knows

external focalization, in which the narrator knows only what he or she is observing from the outside

With regard to voice, Genette distinguishes two types of stories: heterodiegetic, or a narrator who is absent from the story being told; homodiegetic, or a narrator present as a character in the story, who may in turn be the protagonist of his or her own story, or the narrator may play a secondary role as an observer or witness. Leila Guerriero appears in most of her texts as a weak, homodiegetic narrator: she plays a secondary role as an observer. Sometimes she is so secondary that she disappears from the story and one can say that she is a heterodiegetic narrator, but with a question or minor reflection, she makes the reader aware that she is still there. In the case of Guerriero, it would be interesting to apply the Aare typology (2016), which distinguishes between the following: a reconstructed third-person narrator who has not been present in the reality, as the story has been made up of testimonies and documents; touched-up third-person narrator: he or she has been present in the situation, but disappears from the text, the story is created from direct observation; dimmed first-person narrator: he or she has been present in the reality, but appears only occasionally in the text, as the story is built from direct observation; consonant first-person narrator: focused on the narrator’s experience, the scenes are based on direct observation; dissonant first-person narrator: he or she is focused on narrating the experiences of the author of the text, as the scenes are created from observation and direct experience.

This typology helps us to make a first classification within her profiles: in her works on deceased figures such as the Uruguayan poet Idea Vilariño (Idea Vilariño. Esa mujer) (2013), as an example, she expresses herself as a reconstructed third person: she has not been present in that reality, as the story is recreated with testimonies and documents. Guerriero talks to an entire group of people who knew the poet, such as brothers, friends, and critics, as she looks for written testimonies, recorded voices, and photos. She also visits the places where Vilariño lived, and dives into her poems. As an example, in order to write about the poet’s funeral, Guerriero retrieves news from the newspaper library:

“It was not an act with multitudes attending the ceremony”, said the article in Uruguay’s El País newspaper, which announced that Idea Vilariño had died on 28 April 2009. Three months later, on 24 July, the Cultural section of the same newspaper dedicated a comprehensive report to her, and the cover note signed by Rosario Peyrou began by quoting a phrase from the critic Emir Rodríguez Monegal: “One day we will be remembered as the contemporaries of Idea Vilariño” (Guerriero, 2013: 49).

In terms of mode, it is necessary in this type of profile to refer to a non or zero focalization story, which is the classic narrative in which the narrator knows more than the protagonist does, revealing her life as seen from a distance, knowing what will happen to her and how she will end up: returning to the case of Idea Vilariño, the profile begins with her funeral, so the narrator knows much more than her character. Moreover, there is also an internal focalization in which the narrator states what such a figure knows. In other words, going back to case of Idea Vilariño, the narrator unravels what the characters she interviews say for the profile.

In the case of a second differentiation, which would correspond to the profiles of living personalities, we would speak in terms of the voice, of an dimmed third person: the narrator has been present in reality, but appears only occasionally in the text, and the story is built from direct observation. As for the mode, it would be internal focalization: the narrator says