SOBRE GIOCONDA BELLI 162 198 LEER ANALISI bueno en el tiempo libre

Confluencias de los géneros literarios en la literatura centroamericana: testimonio,
novela y narrativas del yo

A dissertation submitted to the
Graduate School
Of the University of Cincinnati
In partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences
By
Mirela Butnaru
B.A,Spanish and English Philology,
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iasi, Romania, 2001
M.A., Spanish Literature,
University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 2004

Committee Chair: Dr. Nicasio Urbina

Abstract
My dissertation entitled “Confluences of the Literary Genres in the Central American
Literatures: Testimonio, Novels and the “I” Narratives” (“Confluencias de los géneros literarios
en laliteratura centroamericana: testimonio, novela y narrativas del yo”) focuses on three Central
American authors: Claribel Alegría, Sergio Ramírez y Gioconda Belli whose texts present a
fusion of elements from various literary genres. Thus, I discuss three texts from each author and I
demonstrate the literary genres can not be retain within the limits of the framework literary
theoreticians andcritics established for testimonio, novel and personal narratives.
The first chapter is concerned with the theories of the “I” narratives, the novel and the
testimonial narratives. Moreover, this chapter discusses the theoretical approaches to the
concepts of memory and truth, which are integral to the personal narratives and the testimonio.
Nonetheless, this chapter is only an approximation to thetheory of the genres already mentioned
and does not pretend to exhaust the topic but to offer several guidelines concerning personal
narratives, testimonio and novel.
In the second chapter, I analyze three books by Claribel Alegría: Cenizas de Izalco
(1966), No me agarran viva: la mujer en la lucha (1983), y Luisa en el país de la realidad
(1987). Thus, I examine Alegría’s writing through theperspective of the testimonial theory
established by Miguel Barnet because all her books contain some testimonial elements. This way
I show that Alegría’s texts do not comprise a sole genre but her writing employs a variety of
elements, which come together to express the cruel reality of the Salvadorian revolution.
The third chapter focuses on three texts by Sergio Ramírez. La marca de zorro. Hazañas
delcomandante Francisco Rivera Quintero contadas a Sergio Ramírez (1989) is written
primarily in the testimonial genre, nonetheless, as in Alegría’s writing, Ramírez employs


 

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elements of the novel. The book Adiós muchachos: una memoria de la revolución sandinista
(1999) is a memoir as the title exposes, but the author also resorts to testimonial and fantastic
elements. In the sameway, the novel Sombras nada más (2002) includes fictional and
testimonial features to express the armed fights of the Sandinista revolution during the 70s.
The fourth chapter discusses the writing of Gioconda Belli to reveal one more time that
the literary genres converge. Therefore, in this section I analyze the hybrid poem collection
Línea de fuego (1978), the novel with testimonial qualities, Lamujer habitada (1988) and her
memoir El país bajo mi piel. Memorias de amor y guerra (2001). As in all the texts examined in
this dissertation, Belli’s writing also resorts to the elements of the “I” narratives established by
the critics, the fragmented memory but additionally employs attributes of the novel such as the
intertextuality and the dialogism.
This way I show various confluences: noveland testimonio; novel, autobiography and
poems; poems and diary; memoirs, novel and poems. Moreover, all these works encompass a
variety of forms of remembering, reconstructing and writing about the dictatorship and
revolutionary years in Central American. By comparing all these texts, I contribute to the
understanding of the development of the Central American novel and I show the role personal...