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Latin American Documentary NarrativeAuthor(s): David William FosterSource: PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 41-55Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/462034.

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DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER

LatinAmericanDocumentaryPero es que muchos se olvidan, con disfrazarsedemagosapococosto,que omaravilloso omienza serlode maneranequivoca uandosurgede unainesperadaalteraci6n ela realidadel milagro),de unarevelaci6nprivilegiadade la realidad,de una iluminaci6n n-habitualo singularmenteavorecedora e lasinadver-tidasriquezasde la realidad,de unaampliaci6nde lasescalasy categoriasde la realidad,percibidas on par-ticular ntensidadnvirtuddeunaexaltaci6n elespirituque lo conducea un modo de estadolimite.

,Peroqu6 es la historia de America toda sino unacr6nica de lo real-maravilloso?Butmanyforget,disguisinghemselves scheapmagi-cians,that themarvelousmanifeststselfunequivocallyonlywhen t derives rom an unexpected lterationofreality (the miracle),from a privilegedrevelationofreality, from an unaccustomedor singularlyadvan-tageousllumination f theunnoticed ichness f reality,from an amplificationof the registersand categoriesof reality,perceivedwith a special ntensityby virtueof an exhaltationof the spirit,which it transports oa sort of criticalstate.Butwhat is the historyof America f not a chronicleof the marvelousreal?

(Carpentier 31-32, 135;my trans.)I

LEJO CARPENTIER'S famous statementconcerning the fabulous quality of LatinAmerican reality, on which GabrielGarciaMarquez later elaborated in his definitive novel

of Latin America, Cien alos de soledad (1976;One Hundred Yearsof Solitude), possesses a dou-ble critical importance: it both stresses the inter-pretation of spurious categories like empiricalreality and imaginative fantasy and underscoresby implication the continuity between documen-tary history and narrative fiction.1 Scholars haveroutinely characterized contemporary LatinAmerican fiction as predominantly a socialtestimonial. They may resist applyingsociopolitical commentary to the narrativeswrit-ten between 1848 and 1916, that is, between Do-

Narrativemingo Faustino Sarmiento's Facundo (Life in theArgentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants),about the Rosas dictatorship in Argentina, andMariano Azuela's Los de abajo (The Underdogs),the most eloquent example of the novel of theMexican Revolution of 1910. But there is littledoubt that first with the novels of social realismand then with contemporary fiction treating theconflicts of Latin American society, fiction hasemerged as an especially productive form ofdocumentary.2Perhaps the most sustained exam-ple is the work of David Vifias, who for almostthirty years has been projecting a revisionisthistory of Argentine society in his novels (seeRodriguez Monegal).

Many recentnovels concern a key phenomenonof Latin American society, the dictator (seeCastellanos and Martinez). Augusto Roa Bastos'Yo el Supremo (1975; 'I the Supreme') is anoutstanding example of these novels. Through thefirst-person narrative of Jos6 Gaspar Rodriguezde Francia (1766-1840), Paraguay's enlightened,utopian despot, the novel representsnot only allthe contradictions of early independent LatinAmerica but the entire Liberal tradition up to thepresent day as well. In this sense, Roa Bastos'novel is the quintessential Latin Americanhistoricalnovel: it deals with the arbitraryviolenceand unremittingoppression of dictatorialregimes,it abounds in historical references and incor-porates a wide range of explicit documentarymaterials, it annuls merechronological limitationsin order to range over the entire span ofParaguayan and Latin American history, and itproceeds with a clear projection of the ideologicalproblems of writing in a society in which vastsegments of the population are illiterate and inwhich discourse is the privilege of a despotic elite( dictator, of course, derives from dictare; andthe textual basis of the novels, from Francia's actof dictatinghis memoirs [see Foster and Miliani]).Thus, it would be an easy task to enumerate alengthy list of contemporary Latin Americanworks of fiction that detail the specific facts ofa complex Latin American society. Julio

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Latin American Documentary NarrativeCortdzar's novel on revolutionary exiles, El librode Manuel (1973; The Book of Manuel), incor-porates explicit documentarymaterialon violenceagainst the third world. Jos6 Donoso's Casa decampo (1978; 'Country House') allegorizes theright-wing military coup in Chile in 1973. Edmun-do Desnoe's Memorias del subdesarrollo (1965;Memories of Underdevelopment)portraysthe ten-sions of revolutionarychangein Cuba. JorgeAsis'Los reventados (1974; 'The Exhausted') concernsPer6n's triumphal return to Argentina in 1973,and a long line of other Argentine novels dealswith the Peronista phenomenon (see Avellaneda,Goldar, and Borello). Carlos Fuentes' La cabezade la hidra (1978; Hydra Head) uses a spy-novelframework to treatMexico's emergence as an oil-rich superpower. One could extend the list muchfurther, and one could adduce, moreover, parallelexamples from the contemporary Latin Americantheater, particularly in countries like Argentina,Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil, where there is a tradi-tion of using public spectacle for sociohistoricalinformation (see Lyday and Woodyard andBissett).With this wide array of literary materials, it isnot surprisingto discover a particularly mpressiveemphasison documentaryor nonfiction narrative.Although critics have written a great deal aboutthe nonfiction novel in recentAmerican literature,the form is fundamentally an outgrowth of thenew journalism, and some have questionedwhether it belongs in the mainstream of currentnovelistic practice (see Hellmann, Hollowell,Zavarzadeh, and Weber). By contrast, it wouldbe possible to define documentary fiction to in-clude many of the novels mentioned above, novelssigned by some of the foremost figures in contem-porary Latin American fiction. Certainly,Cortdzar's El libro de Manuel is a paradigmaticexample, with its intercalation of photographicallyreprodUlcednewspaper clippings in the fictionaltext. From the social ethnographies inspired byOscar Lewis to the many works provoked by in-stitutional violence, documentarynarrative s fun-damental to Latin American literature (for therelation between violence and art, see Dorfman).Rather than merely inventory the many formssuch a genre has assumed in Latin America, I ex-amine in detail five particularlyrepresentativeex-amples. Significantly, none of these examplesspecifically uses documentary materials, as doesCortazar's novel or Manuel Puig's footnote-laden

El beso de la mujer arafia (1976; The Kiss ofSpider Woman), which treats Eros versus civiliza-tion in politically and sexually repressive Argen-tina. And none involves an independentlydefinable fictional component as, again, we havein Cortdzar's novel or in the Lukdcsian historicalnovels of David Viifas. The five titles I study hereare based on texts attributed to real people: aformer black slave in Cuba, students involved ina massacre in Mexico, the victim of a concentra-tion camp in Chile, survivors of a summarypolitical execution in Argentina, and a Colombiansailor lost at sea. What distinguishes these worksis not their fundamentally documentary nature,which routinely prompts libraries to classify themas nonfiction. Rather, all have authors who areimportant novelists, all display a high degree ofnovelistic interest, and, most significant, allovertly involve the difficulties of narratinga seg-ment of Latin American reality. As GarciaMArqueznotes in the introductionto his documen-tary narrative Relato de un ndufrago, which I ex-amine below, the story of his narrator's ten daysat sea was so detailed and fascinating that myonly literary problem was to find a reader whowould believe it (8; my trans.). This fore-groundedattention to the relation betweenwritingand reality, between narrative and fact, betweendetached novelist and involved participant linksthe documentarynarrativeto the intricaciesof fic-tion in Latin America.

IIOriginally published in 1957, Operacionmasacre ('Operation Massacre') by RodolfoWalsh is easily the most authentic example ofdocumentary narrativein Latin American fiction(see Ford, the only in-depth study of Walsh's

documentarywritings). WhereJulio Cortdzar'sEllibrode Manuel usesactualdocuments to highlightthe fictional narrative(see Morello-Frosch),Walshblends truematerialsgatheredin his investigationsand narrativestrategies to make a rhetoricallyef-fective presentation of an actual event. Publishedalmost ten years before Truman Capote's much-touted nonfictional novel In Cold Blood,Operacidn masacre anticipates the techniquescredited to Capote. Walsh sets out to recreatethesenseless massacre of a group of innocent citizensin the area of the capitalof BuenosAires province,La Plata, located about fifty kilometers south of

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David William Fosterthenationalcapital. (Fora fictionaltreatment ftheseevents,seeSzichman.) n June1956,a yearafter Juan Per6n was deposed,Peronistmilitaryofficers stationedat the Campamentode Mayobasemade an abortiveattempt o overthrow heliberation militarygovernment.Although hisgovernment adclaimed hat it wouldoperateontheprinciple f neither ictorsnorvanquished,it enactedseverereprisalsagainstPeronistsym-pathizers,and Walshreports hesummary xecu-tionof a groupof men takenfroma privatehomewheretheyhad putativelygathered o listento afighton the radio.Thepolice, claiming hat thesemenwerepartof theplotto overthrowhegovern-ment and that they had used the home to storearms,transportedhem to a fieldand shotthem.Approximately half dozen men eitherescapedinthedarkor survived heexecutioners' olleyofshots, andWalshpiecesthe eventtogetherbasedon theirstories.Althoughsome of the menwerePeronistsympathizers,no evidence inked themto the attempt to overthrowthe anti-Peronistgovernment.Hamperedby the problemof identifyingandlocatingthe survivorsandharassedby a militarydictatorshipunwillingto admit to such a fatalmistake,Walshevolved his storyover a ten-yearperiodand tappearedntwopreliminaryersionsbeforethe finaltext waspublishedn 1969.(It issignificanthatthisfinalversionwaspublished yJorge Alvarez, one of the most dedicatedpublishers f countercultural aterials uring hebriefperiod n the late sixtiesandearlyseventieswhenanopendiversity f publicopinionwasper-mittedin Argentina.)Theprologue o the thirdand definitive ditionof Walsh's narrativeprovidesinsightsinto theproblemsof investigativeeportingn a repressivesociety,of maintainingan appropriate uthorialstance toward one's material, and of distin-guishing act andfiction n a countrywhere ealityoften outstripsthe most creativeimaginations.Walshfeels particularly onstrained o speakofhow he came to discoverthe first thread thatwould eadhimintothelabyrinth f aneventwithnoofficialreality.Dividednto three ections,withvignettelikesubdivisions( Las personas 'ThePersons,' Los hechos 'The Facts,' La evi-dencia 'TheEvidence'),Operacidn ppearsas aseamlesspieceof fiction.Onecouldevenread heprologue,withits highlysubjective hetoriccon-cerninghenarrator'sommitmento hismaterial,

as an integralpartof the fictionalnarrative r assimplyone morecleverstrategy o engage he in-terestof the reader. n thissense,Operacidn ouldbelongto the Lord Jim familyof narratives, nwhicha singular tory,recovered ychance,holdsinterest for its apparentexotic remoteness romthe securecomfort of the reader.Nevertheless,Walshdemandsmplicitlyhathisreader ecognizethecontemporary istorical eferences f hisnar-rative:allusions o thePeronistperiodand itscol-lapse,to theprotagonists f the 1955 revolutionof liberation nd to theabortiveuprising gainstthemat theCampamento eMayo,to subsequentpoliticalunrest n the country,andto official at-temptsto thwart nvestigation.ThusWalsh'snarrative,despite ts superficialsimilarities o muchmodernfiction,demands obereadasa sociohistorical ocument n which hetechniquesof fictionenhance he textureof truthandthe densityof humanexperience,as theydoin TrumanCapote's work severalyears later.Walsh'sexperienceconcernsa terrible and un-provokedactof injusticebut not an unexplainedone, giventherealityof contemporaryArgentinepolitics. What requiresexplanation,what con-stitutesthe core of mystery, s not that such anevent ook placebut ratherwhowas involvedandhowthateventmaybe reconstructedn a convinc-ingfashion.Thegoalof thenarrator ecomes heact of revelation or the reader n the act of nar-rativerecreation.In thisway, Operaci6ns based on a structureof reduplication: eadingthe narrativecreationrepeats he narrator'sdiscoveryof a clandestineevent, an event that according o official realitynever ook place,a conspiratorialie-a fiction-propagatedo discredita noblemovementof na-tional iberationromJuanDomingoPer6n'sdic-tatorship.A strategicrisk, therefore,underliesOperaci6n:hewillingness f thereadero believethe claimsof a highly ictionalized arrative boutan unverifiablemassacre ather hanthe officialversion that nothing took place. The unques-tionablesuccessof Walsh'sbook may be basedless on the effectivenessof his narrative alentsthan on the cooperativeskepticismof a readingpublicresigned o the mendacityof official ac-counts. Nevertheless, Walsh's fictionalizedstrategies erveas aneffective roniccounterpointto the claimthat a massacreneverhappenedorthatit involvednot innocentvictimsbutcounter-revolutionary gents. Walsh's fiction overtly

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Latin American Documentary Narrativechallenges the fiction of the official explana-tion of the events of mid-1956. Significantly, oneof the final sections of the narrative s entitled Lajusticia ciega 'Blind Justice.'What aresome of the fictional techniquesWalshuses both to enhance his narrativerhetoricallyandto juxtapose it ironically to the fabric of officiallies? The most obvious is the dramatic reenact-ment of dialogues among the participants. Walshbases his investigation on individual interviews ofthe survivors and other persons implicated in themassacre. Yet such dramaticreenactments, whichmust be fictional, constitute the narrator'sunderstanding of the information given himpiecemeal by a number of different sources. Thenarrator frames these narrativerecreations withnecessarilyhypothetical interpretationsof the par-ticipants' mental states. The second novelisticstrategy, one particularlyassociated with modernfiction, is the mosaic narrative. Instead ofrelating events in a strictly chronological order,the narrative presents first the protagonists (theopening section of Operaci6n), followed by theevent-summarized with the leisure of apsychological novel moving among the con-sciousnesses of the participants-and by the con-cluding section, in which the narratoranalyzesthejudicial treatment of the case with the goal ofundermining the government's self-serving ex-planations. Thus, the narratorsets the action in-terest asidein favor of exploringthe complex reac-tions of individuals involved in an irrationalhistorical process that they only vaguely under-stand although they are its sacrificial victims.The following type of segment helps the readerassess how Walsh uses documentary informationgathered from the participants, psychologicalspeculation, and dramatic recreation:

Yacasihaterminado e cenarFranciscoGaribotti-un bife con huevos fritos comi6 esa noche-cuandollaman a la puerta.Es don Carranza.iQu6 viene a hacerNicolis Carranza?-Vino a sacirmelo. Para que me lo devolvieranmuerto-recordari FlorindaAllende con rencoren lavoz.FranciscoGaribottihasalmost inished ating steakwithfriedeggs s whatheate thatevening)whensome-one comesto the door.It's Don Carranza.Whatcan Nicolts Carranzawant?

He cameto take himawayfrom me. So I wouldgethim backdead, FlorindaAllendewasto recallwithbitterness n her voice. (29; my trans.)

The unannounced transition from the pluperfectarrival of Nicol.s Carranza, to the presentrhetorical question posed to the reader, and thento the future past reply that Garibotti's wifemakes when the investigative reporterasks herthesame question is an outstanding example ofWalsh's effective narrativestrategies. By contrastwith the ratherflat autobiographical narrativeofBiografia de un cimarr6n (see sec. 6 below), theunhighlighted reportingof La noche de Tlatelolco(sec. 3), or the explicit disjunction of fiction anddocument in El libro de Manuel, the narrative ex-ture of Operaci6n is particularly novelistic inblending into a single discourse the disparateelements of narrative speculation and authenticquotation.Yet another novelistic device is a form of nar-rative withholding characteristic of detective fic-tion. Walsh effects a suspenseful rhythm in hisnarrative by withholding information at certainpoints, by shifting focus from one person toanother or from one circumstanceto another, andby overtly referring o unknown elements(the finalsection of the firstpartis entitled Las inc6gnitas'Unknown Elements'), to what we will neverknow. He gives a generaloutline of events in theprologue, but by momentarily defyingthe reader'snatural desire for a full explanation at any onepoint in the exposition, Walsh uses one of thehoariest techniques of the storyteller's art. Byplaying on the parallelbetween the reader's desireto know and the participants' inability to explainthe tragic circumstances in which they are caughtand on the homology between narrator's andreader's discovery of a nefarious event, Walshconstructs perhaps the most sophisticated exam-ple of Latin American documentary narrative inthe service of sociopolitical awareness. The nar-rator's cry of frustration in the face of too muchreality anticipates that of readers unable to with-stand the onslaught of a truth they cannot repeal(10).

IIIIf the Vietnam War marked an American loss

of innocence, the events surroundingthe massacreof students by police at Tlatelolco, or the Plaza

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David William Fosterde las Tres Culturas, on the night of 2 October1968 had a similarimpact on Mexico's self-image.Where the citizen of the United States had torecognize that American military involvementmight be base and self-serving ratherthan noble,the firing on students exercising their constitu-tional right of assembly brought to the attentionof the Mexican public an ugly truth: despite Mex-ico's tradition of stable government under thestrong guided democracy of the rulingPRI (In-stitutional Revolutionary Party), repression ofcivil liberties and human rights could assume thesame proportions in Mexico as it had in Argen-tina or Paraguay. The massacre followed a seriesof student protests that spanned the summermonths and early fall; it occurred when a large ar-ray of foreign correspondents and tourists was inMexico for the Olympic games; and it proved tothe students and their supporters that the govern-ment of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz and the ruling oligar-chy supportinghim would not tolerate serious dis-sent: these were all elements that contributed tothe tremendous psychological impact of theTlatelolco incident (see Campos Lemus, Mora,and Barros Sierra).Indeed, Tlatelolco has acquiredsuch a profoundmeaning in contemporary Mexican culture that ithas inspired a book-length essay by Octavio Paz(Postdata; trans. as The Other Mexico: Critiqueof the Pyramid) and virtually a subgenre of con-temporary Mexican literature(see Leal and Fran-co). La noche de Tlatelolco (1971; published inEnglish as Massacre in Mexico) by ElenaPoniatowska is the only documentary narrativebesidesCortazar'sEl librode Manuel and Barnet'sBiograffa de un cimarrdntranslated into English.It is the most documentary of the texts studied inthis essay and, consequently, the least novelisticin terms of fictional elements or devices.3Never-theless, it is novelistic in the sense that it sustainsa complex narrative exture.And, althoughNochehas a place in a bibliography of contemporaryMexican social history, criticsread it as an impor-tant contribution to the contemporary LatinAmerican novel. To read Noche as more novelthan document does not detract from its qualityas documentarytestimonial. Rather-as is true forall recent documentary and historical fiction inLatinAmerica-such a readingtestifies to the con-tinuity of fiction and reality in that culture andto the importance of productive mythicfactuality.4

The nearly three hundred pages of Noche aredivided into two roughly equal sections, Ganarla calle 'Take to the Streets' and La noche deTlatelolco. The firstpartrefers to the variousstu-dent demonstrations and skirmishes with policeduring the summer of 1968 and the second to theconfrontation on 2 October, in which the police,apparently obeying orders to end the protest ac-tivities, opened fire on the unarmed students. Butthere is no clear break between the two sections,and the development of the material is chron-ological in only a general fashion. Poniatowskaevidently means to relate the two phases of the1968 events as more than simply a time sequenceof escalatingviolence. While it is apparentthat theprotests did not accidentally coincide with Mex-ico's hosting of the Olympic games, both theauthor and her interviewees maintain that themovement developedout of naturalcauses and didnot arise from an effort to embarrass the govern-ment in its sponsorship of the games (naturally,as the first Latin American country to host thegames, Mexico took sponsorship seriously; to agreat degree it was meant to signify Mexico'smature international stature). Poniatowska andthe students, teachers, intellectuals, and membersof the general public whom she interviewed insistthat a generalpatternof repressionof dissent hademerged in Mexico. The Diaz Ordaz government,either cynically or stupidly, seemed determinedtoexercise the dictatorial control associated withmilitary regimes in Latin America and not withthe sort of functioning democracyMexico claimedto be. Moreover, the fact that events took placein the Plaza de las Tres Culturas has been inter-preted as symbolic of Mexico's ties to the bloodsacrifice of its Aztec roots.But Poniatowska only suggests this interpreta-tion; it was left to writers like Octavio Paz andCarlos Fuentes to provide adequate literaryelaboration.5 Instead, Poniatowska treats thematerial as documentary. She skillfully weavestogether fragments, usually a few lines to half apage in length although occasionally longer, basedon interviews she conducted with participantsandbystanders: many of both groups were still in-carceratedover a year after the incident, when shewas working on the manuscript. (On the structureof Noche, see Christ.) She punctuates thesefragments with slogans taken from the bannersand signs carried by the students, as well as withmaterialfrom various other documentary sources,

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Latin American Documentary Narrativesuch as newspaper reports and official declara-tions. Finally, on very few occasions, Poniatowskaintervenes to offer her own point of view. Other-wise, with the exception of statements in the in-terviews addressedto her by name, she limits herauthorial presence to the not insignificant order-ing of the material that we read.6

Although Poniatowska includes material fromofficials and citizens who attribute seditious andimmoral objectives to the students, the overalltone of Noche creates the sense of a tragic eventthat transcended the power of the participants tocontrol it. The massacreat Tlatelolco was neitheran isolated accident nor the folly of a particulardictatorial ambition but rather the dramatic ex-ample of repression inherent in the Mexicansystem of government. If Rodolfo Walsh'sOperaci6n masacre depends for its impact on thewillingnessof the readerto believe that savage tor-ture and illegal executions are integral to Argen-tine life, Poniatowska's narrativederives its forcefrom the incredulityof the reader,mirroredin thestatements of the individuals Poniatowska inter-viewed, that such events could happen in Mexico,a countrythat in the twentiethcenturyhas claimedto be above the human-rightsinfringementschar-acteristic of Latin America. When Poniatowskaincludes materialreferringto the arbitrarybehav-ior of the police toward students and bystanders,the disappearanceof individuals whisked away inbroad daylight in unmarked cars, the refusal ofauthorities to answer inquiries concerning thearrested or the detained, the excessive sentencesimposed in violation of accepted legal principles,the torture sessions at police headquarters, andfinally, the government'sviolent explosion againstits own citizens at Tlatelolco, she challenges thesacred myths of modern Mexico. Her publisher'sdifficulty in keeping the book in print when it ap-peared in 1971 shows that there were readerswill-ing to risk the challenge to their incredulity.These features lead us to consider the narrativeaspects of Noche and its place, as documentary,among contemporary Latin American novels. Aconventional novel like Carlos Fuentes' La cabezade la hidra (1978) treats a fictional circumstanceas though it werereal-Cabeza, the first Mexicanespionage novel by a major writer, deals withAmerican, Jewish, and Arab intrigue over Mex-ico's huge petroleum industry. Poniatowska'sdocumentary, by contrast, deals with a real eventso monumental and terrible that it seems

unbelievableto participants,witnesses, and, in thefinal instance, the readersof hertext (indeed, theremust be otherwise intelligentMexicanswho doubtthat the massacreat Tlatelolco took place). Thus,the author's goal is not to presentan academicanalysis of a particularmoment in recentMexicanhistory but to recreate the sense and the feel ofan event in order to highlight its inescapablereality.From a novelist's point of view, Poniatowskaeschews the procedure of serializing a number ofindividual and discrete interviews-the strategypopularized by Oscar Lewis in his oral an-thropological research-in favor of the mosaicpatterning so characteristicof contemporary fic-tion. That is to say, although she interviewed anumber of individuals, she does not present thewords of any one of the principal interviewees asa block. Rather,the text of Noche moves back andforth among a basic cast of speakers, and onewould need to gather quotes spread over the fullextent of Noche to recoverthe testimony given bya specific person. The declarations of each in-dividual (and it is reasonable to suppose thatPoniatowska interviewedsome persons in one ses-sion, others in several)are fragmented in order toprovideclustersof commentson significanttopics:police brutality, the causes of the movement, therole of students, the reactions of bystanders, theattitudes of teachers and administrators towardthe protest movement, and so on. One section, forexample, deals with participants' emotional reac-tions to memories of Tlatelolco (152-53).It could be argued that such a textual strategyis paradigmaticallydocumentary and antitheticalto fictional narrative. After all, historical novels,while they may seek to recreatean eraor an event,focus on the internal coherence and identity ofspecific individuals; even documentary narrativeslike Capote's In Cold Blood strive for a sense ofthe feelings and motivations of concrete in-dividuals. By contrast, Poniatowska's use of herinterview material makes it difficult to derive asense of any single participant, with the exceptionof two or three whose words recurwith specialem-phasis. Nevertheless, Noche, in repudiating theneed to portray individual psychologies, is inthe mainstream of contemporary fiction, espe-cially of the Latin American novel. Juan Rulfo'sPedro Pdramo (1955), Cortizar's Rayuela (1963;Hopscotch), Fuentes' La regi6n mds transparente(1958; Where the Air Is Clear), Puig's La traici6n

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David William Fosterde Rita Hayworth (1968; Betrayed by RitaHayworth), and Severo Sarduy'sDe donde son lascantantes (1967; From Cuba with a Song) arenovels based on narrative and psychologicalfragmentation, in which discrete individuals andeventsmust be piecedtogether(seeFuentes,Nuevanovela 16-23, and Jitrik). Vargas Llosa's La casaverde(1966; The GreenHouse) illustratesthis pro-cedurewell, for its charactershave differentnamesas they participate in different but homologoussituations. Thus, Noche is an excellent exampleof the nonpsychological novel, with parallels inthe fiction of John Barth, Donald Barthelme, andothers. One cannot speak of Noche as moreauthentic or real because of its overt use ofinterviewmaterialsand the fragmentationthat im-pedes the sense of round characters, to useE. M. Forster's famous term. Rather, the ironicframing-the foregone conclusion as the point ofdeparture for the chain of events represented-the authorial intervention in organizing thematerial gathered, the eloquent juxtaposition oforal texts with various other sources, the interplaybetween personal commentaries and impersonal,antiphonic choruses like the banners and postersare conscious artisticdecisions that lend Noche itsspecial narrative and novelistic texture.

IVIt would perhaps be an error to associatedocumentary narrative with unusually dramaticevents in the sociopolitical life of a society: institu-tional violence is such an ordinary part of LatinAmerica that one must conclude that its ap-pearance in Latin American literature has been

predominantly documentary rather than fictionalsince the time of independence and the first senseof lost ideals and myths. Nevertheless, observershave perceivedevents like the Tlatelolco massacreor the military coup in Chile in 1973 as quantumjumps in the contest between democratic idealsand official repression. It is therefore not surpris-ing that the inevitable fictional treatments arecomplemented by documentary narrativesresponding to the urgency of reality with thesymbolic power of literature. We have seen howPoniatowska's narrative of the Tlatelolcomassacreis predicatedon the strategyof disbelief.In opposition to the cliche that fiction asks us tobelieve in the reality of an imaginary narrativespace, Poniatowska takes a historically definable

context and demands that we believe that theotherwise incredible can occur. Juan Rulfo asksus to believe that in the fictional realm of PedroPdramo the dead continue the discourse of life;in La noche de Tlatelolco, Poniatowska asks usto believe that official repressionhas reachedsucha point in Mexico that the incredible may takeplace: innocent citizens, exercising the constitu-tional right of assembly and free expression, maybe massacred by a cynical government.The military takeover in Chile spurred a trulyimpressive body of literature: virtually everyChilean writerof note has attempted to render anadequate portrayal of the Allende phenomenon.The Union Popular governmenttriggerednot onlyone of the most vicious military coups in recentLatin American history but also a tragic collec-tive loss of innocence, a realization of just howfragile the much-touted Chilean liberal anddemocratictraditionwas. (See the collection editedby Skarmeta and his introduction; see also thejournal Literatura Chilena en el Exilio and Co-loquio sobre literaturachilena. ) Narrative treat-ments range from the allegorical Casa de campo(1978) by Chile's major novelist, Jose Donoso, tothe barelycontrolled denunciations like FernandoAlegria's Paso de los gansos (1975; 'Goose Step')and Antonio Skdrmeta's Soiet que la nieve ardfa(1975; 'I Dreamed the Snow Was Burning'). In adocumentaryvein, EnriqueLafourcade'sSalvadorAllende (1973) and Hernan Vald6s' Tejas Verdes(1974) are two of the best examples. Lafourcadeweaves together explicitly documentary materialwith a fictional evocation of Allende's stream-of-consciousness ramblings on his government andits fate. The structural strategy of SalvadorAllende resembles the conjunction of documen-tary materialsand fictional narrative n Cortgzar'sEl libro de Manuel, and in the representation ofAllende's preverbal consciousness it bears af-finities with Roa Bastos' Yoel Supremo. Becauseit does not convincingly portray the complexitiesof the Allende phenomenon, however, Lafour-cade's work has never achieved recognition as animportant post-1973 Chilean narrative.Hernan Valdes is one of the most importantwriters who established themselves during theAllende period; his Tejas Verdes,subtitled Diariode un campo de concentraci6n en Chile, recreatesthe time he spent after the 1973 coup in the TejasVerdes camp, near the port of San Antonio. (Asegmentof Tejas Verdesappearsin Skirmeta's an-

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Latin American Documentary Narrativethology [85-100]; for discussion, see Epple andMassey.) During the month of his internmentValdes was subjected to the torture and generallydegrading treatment typical of such camps, andthus his account belongs to an extensive bib-liography of fictional and documentary materialsthat treat the violence of repressive LatinAmericansociety. These materials focus on the useof torture, secret police, extralegal death squads,and clandestine jails for social and political con-trol. From Eduardo Pavlovky's drama on profes-sional tortures, El Sefior Gal'ndez (1973), andnovels on official torture like Manuel Puig's Elbeso de la mujer aratfa or Carlos MartinezMoreno's El color que el infierno nos escondiera(1981; The Color Hell Hid from Us) to the per-sonal testimony by Jacobo Timerman, Prisonerwithout a Name, Cell without a Number (1980),there is a constellation of works in which it is dif-ficult, and probably fruitless, to distinguish be-tween the fictional and the documentary.What is unique about Tejas Verdes, therefore,cannot be the voice it adds to the tragic chorusdemanding recognition of human rights in LatinAmerica: it would be impossible to provide ahierarchy for these voices, each powerfully elo-quent in its own fashion. What is singular aboutValdes' narrative s the conjunction of his unques-tionably true statementsregardinghis personalex-periences and his use of a hypothetical diary toportray those experiences. The diary format, par-ticularlywhen an author uses it to transmitallegedfact, presupposes that the author can transcribeevents on a day-to-day basis, in moments ofrecollection and reflection. Such a documentshould possess the spontaneity of the moment andthe accuracy provided by immediate recounting.In contrast to chronological memoirs, which usethe past tense to describeevents, the diaryuses thepresent tense to convey the continuity between anevent and its prompt commitment to paper.Valdes divides his diary into thirty-one datedsegments, one for each day of his detention, andwrites in the present tense. He recognizes in hispreface, however, that sincehe was actuallyunableto maintain a diaryduringhis stay at TejasVerdes,what he presentsis a legitimate recreation of whathe would have written. Because prisoners lose asense of time, as well as a sense of identity, underthe barrageof physical abuse at a place like TejasVerdes, the relative brevity of Vald6s' internmentlends credibility to his day-by-day recreation of

events. The preface is dated May 1974; and theclosenessof dates serves to validate furtherValdes'claims to accuracy.Such a combination of circumstancestestifies,of course, to Valdes' determination to bear per-sonal witness to the terrible violation of humanrights in Chile. His testimony speaks for thethousands who have died in places like TejasVerdes or who have remained silent to avoid therisk of further persecution. Although Valdeswrites from the safety of Barcelona, the juxtaposi-tion of the restrictionsof the concentration campwith the hypothetical recreation of the diary ac-quires, in terms of narrative discourse, a specialmeaning. The diaryentitled Tejas Verdes,with itsaccurate descriptions of life inside the concentra-tion camp, emerges as an ex post facto defianceof the silence andthe loss of personal identity im-posed by the extralegal prison system.Ample evidence supports the allegation thatstrict silence is used as a strategy to destroypolitical prisoners, and the eloquence of the fic-tive day-by-day entries in Valdes' diary serves asa defiant counterpoint to the real, Draconian cir-cumscriptions of imprisonment. By contrast, theonly legitimate forms of communication becomethe demands for information imposed by the in-terrogationand torturesessions. The proscriptionsagainst expression versus the demands for infor-mation, the imaginary worlds of the novelist ver-sus the all too real world of political process, thesemiconsciousness of the brutalized prisoner ver-sus the eloquence of a personal testimony, theunreality of the experience of the moment versusthe painfully vivid recall of a subsequentreflection-these are some of the juxtapositionsVald6s'document uses to highlightthe uniquenessof its narrative:Hablardesdeaquide todo eso como de una realidadesfumada, como de una situaci6n hist6rica 6nicadilapidadapor el temor, suena a pesadilla;peromastodaviareconocernos nosotrosmismos,en lamedidaenquehablamos,comosobrevivienteseesarealidad.Porque, si logramossalir de aqui alguna vez ^qu6seremossi no? En el mejorcaso, individuosaislados,ocupandonos scuramente emantener uestras idas.Melanc6licose lo quenosupimoshacer on la historia.To talkaboutall thisfromhereasthough alkingabouta fuzzyreality,a uniquehistorical ituationdecayedbyterror,soundslike a nightmare.But even more so torecognizeourselves,as we talk, as survivorsof that

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David William Fosterreality.Because f we are successful n finallygettingout of here,whatelse willwe be but survivors? hebestwe can expectis to be isolatedindividuals,obscurelyconcernedwithsustaining urlives,melancholic boutwhat we wereincapableof doingwith history.(72; my trans.)

The deictic aqui 'here' of this passageassumes n ironic unctionbecausehediarydefiesthe camp's restrictionsagainstpersonal expres-sion. As a reference o the locus of Valdestheprisoner, t alludes to the problemof continuitybetween he situaci6nhist6rica of thenarratorand of his colleaguesand theirimprisonmentnTejas Verdes: heirpersonal sufferingis not anisolatedcircumstance ut partof an ideologicalprocess o whichtheybearsymbolicwitness.It isonly in this way that the politicalprisonerscanstruggle against the psychological destructionsought by their jailers. But as the point ofreferenceof Valdesthe memorialist-the writerwho allowshimself he licenseof creatinghediaryhe would like to have beenableto maintaindur-inghisincarceration- aqui signals heproblemof continuitybetween he timeless and nebulousdomain of miserablesufferingand the commit-ment to bear witnessof the individual en thou-sand miles removedfrom Tejas Verdes.The artfulstrategyof interplaying ilence andexpressiveness-a strategy hatis literary noughfor a novelistof Valdes'qualifications-lendsTe-jas Verdes powerasdocumentaryarrative uitebeyondthe work'svalidityas sociohistorical n-formationandthereby rustrates he goal of theoppressors.In this sense, TejasVerdes tandsasa superb xampleof LatinAmericandocumentarynarrative ecause t expressivelyefies heprimacyof collective silence.

VWhile the most renowned Latin Americanwriters may write testimonial literature --literature that fictionalizes and allegorizesrecognizable individuals and events in LatinAmerican ocietyandpolitics-relatively ewhavewritten specifically documentary narratives.GabrielGarciaMarquezprovidesa significant x-ception in Relato de un ndufrago que estuvo diezdrasa la deriva en una balsa sin comer ni beber,quefue proclamado hdroe de lapatria, besadoporlas reinas de la belleza y hecho rico por lapublicidad, y luego aborrecido por el gobierno y

olvidadopara siempre(1970; 'Storyof a CastawayWho Was Lostat Sea forTenDaysin a RaftwithNothingto Eat or Drink,Who WasProclaimeda NationalHero, Kissedby BeautyQueensandMadeRichbyPublicity,and LaterSpurned ytheGovernment ndForgottenForever').7 ublishedin 1955 as a series of newspaperarticles inBogota's El Espectador, Relato would never havebeenreprintedn book form had not the youngreporter gone on to become one of LatinAmerica'smostfamousnovelists.Indeed,GarciaMdrquez bservesn hisintroductory otethat hewaspersuadedo publishRelatosolelybecause tspublicationwouldpermithim to turn tsroyaltiesover to its trueauthor,the forgottenseamanofa Colombiannaval destroyer.ButRelatoonlyfunctionsasdocumentary ar-rative in the context of its republication.Theseaman'snarratives not muchmorethan a de-taileddescription f thehardshipsacedbyanin-dividual float n anunprotectedaftwithoutpro-visions or tendays.Reminiscentf Hemingway'sOld Man and the Sea, the narrativedescribeshowthe seamansurvivesbecauseof hisgood physicalcondition, his calmness, and a determinationprobably born of military discipline. If theseaman's own ingenuous disclaimersgive hisstatementsmerelythe passingimportanceof ahuman-interesttory,the basison whichElEspec-tadoragreedo buyhisstory nthe firstplace,howdoes Relato achieve mportanceas documentarynarrative?Garcia Marquezobservesin his in-troduction that El Espectador and its eagerreporterwereunawarewhen t reluctantly greedto buyVelasco's tory(thenewspapereltthatthetopichadalready eenexhausted ythepress) hatthestorywouldrevealanofficialcover-upof theeventssurroundingheincident.WhereasVelascoandsevencrewmenwhodrownedwere weptover-board in rough seas from the deck of a badlylistingvessel, heofficialexplanationaidtheyhadbeenlost duringan unexpected tormthat madeany rescueattemptimpossible.What had made the destroyer Caldas listdangerouslyntheroughCaribbeaneasbetweenCubaand Colombiawas the heavycontrabandcargopoorlydistributed ndinadequatelyasheddownon thedeck.ThecargohadbeenpurchasedinMobile,Alabama,where hedestroyer adbeendockedforeightmonthsof repairsandrefittings.Thecrewmen adusedtheirpayduringhose ongmonths to buy householdappliancesand other

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Latin American Documentary Narrativegoods, and because of the double violation oftransporting such cargo and transporting it ondeck, the ship's officers wereunquestionablycom-promised. Swept overboard when high wavesbroke the cargo loose, the seamen were left behindby the destroyer,which could not maneuverin therough seas because of its poorly distributedweight. When rescueplanes found no trace of sur-vivors, a storm was declaredresponsible, and thecase was closed. Velasco's appearance ten dayslater did not alter this story, and the hero'swelcome he receivedwas perhaps unspoken com-pensation for his abandonment by the Caldas.In the subsequent recounting of his story toGarcia Marquez, it soon became apparentthat hespoke of two details that did not jibe with the of-ficial versions: the Caldas carriedheavy cargo ondeck, and there was no storm. The ensuinguproar-Colombia was ruled at the time by thedictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla-cost Velasco hisstatus as a hero and his job with the navy, sentGarcia Mdrquez into the exile from which, tenyears later, Cien afios de soledad emerged, andresulted in El Espectador being closed down bythe government. Thus the documentary meaningof Relato derives not from Velasco's narrative assuch but from the accidental contradiction hisstory provided and from Garcia Marquez' subse-quentrecontextualization n hispresentationof thenarrative in book form.In the same way that the individualdeclarationsgathered by Poniatowska provide little more thanfragmentary versions of the events surroundingTlatelolco and acquire their power as social andnarrativedocument by virtue of the author's uni-fying conception, Relato attains its meaning fromGarcia Mdrquez' introduction. Although GarciaMarquez as narrator does not intervene inVelasco's story, we may assume that the subject'snatural narrative is not altogether untainted byauthorial intervention. The presence of thereporter-interviewer, the questions he may askovertly, and the conditioning he may providecovertly and even unconsciously contribute to theconfiguration of the narrative.The text of Relato consists of Velasco's detailedreconstructionof events; read in conjunction withGarcia MSrquez' introduction, his tale acquiresresonance as an unintentional expose. A dramaticirony colors Velasco's representationsbecause thereader knows what will happen and why: this in-formation is superior to that of Velasco not only

at the time of the adventure he describes but also,significantly, at the time of his declarations to ElEspectador'sreporter.For example, Velascorefersrepeatedlyto the crew's acquisition of articles, totheirspecialrelationshipwith a salesman in Mobilewho, because he spoke excellent Spanish withoutever having been in Latin America, was partic-ularly favored with their money, and to the waythe contraband initially protected the seamenworking on the deck of the Caldas from the wavesbefore it swept them overboard. Read in conjunc-tion with Garcia M,rquez' introduction, thesereferences insistently foreshadow the impendingdisaster.

What makes such unconscious foregroundingespeciallyinteresting s that Velasco maintainsthathe developed a fear of the sea (after seeing themovie Caine Mutiny, he and his shipmates haddiscussed what they would do in such a storm).And he experiences a clear presentiment of trou-ble on the voyage back to Colombia, a voyageboth routine and short. Yet, the references thatforetell subsequentdisaster are based on the stormthat serves as the narrative catalyst of the CaineMutiny and not on the improper stowage of thecontrabandthe crewmenpurchasedwhile they en-joyed movies and other relaxations ashore. At thesame time, the preoccupation with a storm at seaadds a further resonance: the government willcover the true circumstances of the seamen's fateby falsely attributing their loss to an unexpectedstorm.On another level, the references to contrabandbecome the central point in the interplay betweenuntrustworthy official versions and the truth ofVelasco's narrative as unintentional expose.Again, this relationmay only be perceivedthroughthe conjunction of the seaman's text and GarciaMArquez' ntroduction. Two forms of contrabandare symbolically interrelatedin the text. There isthe cargo stowed on deck in clear violation ofmilitary regulations. This cargo is the nucleus ofVelasco's ordeal: its acquisition and its quantitybespeak the long stay away from home, and itprevents the Caldas from rescuingthe men sweptoverboard. This contraband, which the seamanmentions simplyas the materialcause of his ordealwith no thought to its illegality, triggersthe con-traband newspaper nterviews:becauseEl Espec-tador's articlesinadvertentlyreveal both the truthof the forbidden cargo and the lie concerning thestorm at sea, they become the object of persecu-

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David William Fostertion by the dictatorship.Truth is a contrabandcommodity n a repressive ociety, and reprisalsfor the contraband f Relatosubstituteoranyjudicialreviewof the officersof the Caldas andtheiraccommodatinguperiorsn thegovernment.By the sametoken, Relato'spublication n 1970acknowledgeshat its importanceas a narrativedocument,beyondanyintrinsic torytelling killsof theaccidentaliteratusLuisAlejandroVelasco,derives rom ts unforeseen tatureascontrabandtruth;and it is this quality hat makesRelatoanappropriatexampleof LatinAmerican ocumen-tary narrative.

VIMiguel Barnet's Biografia de un cimarrdn(1966;publishednEnglishas TheAutobiographyof a Runaway Slave) exemplifies a subgenre ofCaribbean iteraturethat has acquired specialprominence ince the Castro revolution n Cubain 1959: literaturedealing with the black ex-perience see Schulman).Slaveswere introducedearly in the Caribbean,when the indigenouspopulationwas unable to survive he harsh con-ditions imposed by the Spanish conquerors.Barnet, whose Cancidn de Rachel (Song of

Rachel) is one of the major narrativesof therevolution, interviewed Esteban Montejo, a105-year-oldormer lavewho,after heabolitionof slavery,becamea peonon thesugarcaneplan-tations that constitute the basis of Cubaneconomicwealth.8According o his own story,inan actof spontaneous ebellionhe hurleda stoneat one of the slavedrivers nd fledintothemoun-tains,wherehe livedin solitudefor severalyearsas a runaway-hence the epithet cimarr6n, whichis used nthe Caribbeano denominate runawayslave(i.e., a maroon).Whenhediscovers hat theSpanishcrown has abolishedslavery, Montejoreturns o civilization ndbecomesa wage-earningpeon.Barnet'spresentations misleadinglyitled,becauseonly a smallportionof Montejo'snar-ratives devoted o hispersonal uffering s a slaveand his subsequentexperiencesas a runaway.Thereareampleassertions oncerninghe dread-fulsubhumanot of theslavesandthescarcelym-provedconditions after the formal abolitionofslavery.ButMontejo's toryconcentratesmoreonhis interest n womenand on his descriptionsofblackfolkwaysandcustoms n Cuba,traditionalreligiouspractices,andhis own comingsandgo-

ings, particularly is involvement n the strugglefor Cuban independence rom Spain that cul-minated ntheAmericannvasionof the island n1898.9Montejo'snarrative, ramedby Barnet'sbriefpresentation,s perhaps heleast novelisticof thedocumentarynarratives I examine here (seeMoreno Fraginalsfor comment on its ethno-graphicnature).Althoughcriticsrecognize t asan importantpostrevolutionaryext that is con-tinuous with Barnet'screativefiction, it clearlybelongs to the Cuban tradition of personalmemoirs of social life. Barnet specificallyin-troduces t as partof an ethnographic ndertak-ing (andit was originallypublished, n 1966,bythe InstitutodeEtnologiay Folklore n Havana).Bythesame oken,therecanbe littlequestionhatBiografia has an ulterior social motive: thedocumentation f both theauthentic olk cultureof Cuba hatthe revolution ought o recoverandthe deplorablehumanconditions hatjustifytherevolutionandits subsequentprograms.Monte-jo's symbolicstatusas a rebelagainst he institu-tionof slavery,hisparticipationn thestruggleorCuban independence,his membershipin theCuban SocialistParty, and, above all else, hisrepresentationsf thesolidarity irstof theblack

slavesocietyandsubsequently f the blackethnicminorityall attest to valuespromotedby the of-ficial mythopoesisof the Castro government.Thus, the correspondencesbetween Montejo'sdeclarations nd the overallcoherenceof his nar-rativeacquiremeaningwithinpostrevolutionaryCubansocietybyevoking ntertextually nentirerangeof social and artisticdocuments.If the postrevolutionaryulture n Cubacon-stitutesa body of intertexts or the appropriatereading of Montejo's story, the ethnographicframeworkacts as a subtextthat revealsthe in-terplaybetweenautobiographicaldocumentaryand socialnarrative. n a tone that wouldstrikeanAmericanpost-civilrightsmovement eader ssomewhatpatronizing,BarnetdescribeshisearlymeetingswithMontejo.The old manrambledonrepetitively, without regard for chronology.Barnetclaimsthatafterhe established he essen-tial interest of the former slave's story, hepreparedan inventoryof chronologicallybasedquestionsconcerningheprincipalopicscoveredby Montejo. Barnetrecordedand polishedtheman's repliesand published hem as Biografia.Theeditorialprocess nvolveda minimumof cor-

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Latin American Documentary Narrativerection in order to retain the man's style and hissociolect, which includesarchaisms, regionalisms,and socioeducationally determined solecisms;Barnet provides an appendix of vocabulary thenonspecialistreadermight not recognizeand foot-notes clarifying some of the historical references.There are several major problems with thisframework. In the first place, the narrative can-not be read as a spontaneous declaration, free ofintervening filters. There are the inevitable con-ditions imposed by the presence of theethnographic interviewer and the instruments ofhis stenographic or electronic transcription, andBarnet makes it clear that Montejo's auto-biography is based on questions elicited by theearlier, more rambling statements. However,Barnet does not presenthis questions in Biografiaeither as an integral part of the text or as an ap-pendix. Montejo's narrative is divided into threesegments of unequal length- La esclavitud'Slavery,' La abolici6n de la esclavitud 'Aboli-tion of Slavery,' and La guerrade la independen-cia 'War of Independence'-along with untitledinternal divisions of similarly diverse length. Thereadercannot reconstructBarnet's questions, ex-cept by the rather unproductive process ofgenerating questionsbased on discretestatements.For example, when Montejo says he can neverforget the first time he attempted an escape, onecould postulate Barnet's hypothetical question:Tell me about the first time you attempted toescape. Like novels in which one speaker'swordsare transcribedwhile another's are representedbyellipses, Biografia presents as explicit text a nar-rative generated by a subtext conditioned by aninterviewer's questions based on avowedethnographic motives and sociopolitical interests.Barnetaccompanies these avowals of legitimateanthropological concern with the disclaimer thathe intends to write literature. Such a disclaimer,though strategically mportantbecauseof Barnet'sidentificationwith the contemporaryCubannovel,follows Barnet's frank admission that, in pre-senting Montejo's autobiography, he has addeda level between Montejo's spontaneous declara-tions and the text we receive. In addition torestructuring the natural narrative throughethnographic questions, he felt constrained tocopyedit the transcript for greater conciseness.These decisions, made by a highly skilled novelist,undoubtedlyenhanceMontejo's narrative.And inthe process, although they do not justify our

readingBiografia as pseudoautobiographical fic-tion, they lend it a novelistic texture that disruptssignificantly its raw documentary value.The dominant narrativemarker in Biografia isthe controlling predicate statement Yo vide 'Isaw.' It is immaterialwhetherthis recurringphraseis consciously or unconsciously uttered, whetherit is Montejo's own or Barnet'sattribution. It hasadded emphasis because it is one of the principalarchaisms (for yo vi ) in the text, and it clearlypunctuates the narrative as an attribution ofauthenticity. By the same token, it is counter-balanced very carefully by statements to the ef-fect that the narrator did not actuallywitness suchand such an event or circumstance. That is, thereis a clear interplaybetween what the narratorcanclaim as true by virtue of personal experienceandwhat he can only report as claimed by others. Inturn, such reportorial humility further authen-ticates the story because it lends credence to whatMontejo maintains as personal experiences. Thiseffect is especially noticeable when he refers towhat the modem readerwould likely take as tradi-tional superstition rather than as verifiable fact:Yo digo esto porque da por resultado que yo lovide mucho en la esclavitud 'I mention thisbecause it turns out that I saw a lot of it duringslavery' (32; my trans.).Throughout his autobiography, Montejorecognizes the importance of his memory, for-to the extent that he can relate personal ex-periences to the sociohistorical panorama ofCuba-it gives continuity to his story andcoherence to the information he is relaying. Thushe repeatedly stipulates the disjunction betweenthe historical reality he clearly recalls and the im-perfect memory of people today or between thathistorical reality and the changes that haveoccurred in Cuban society. Montejo's overridingconcern is to explain how things were. His goalis to interpret for his audience (Barnet, in imme-diate terms; the anonymous reader of the text, ingeneral) his life as a black slave and second-classcitizen in Cuba. Although the resulting texture isnarrative primarily because it has as an organiz-ing point of reference the life of the first-personnarrator, with little dramatic or active narrative,Biografia is a documentary with the undeniablenovelistic traces I have outlined.

VIIIt should be apparentthat a clearunityunderlies

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David William Fosterthefive worksI examinen thisstudy:alldepend,fortheirdefiningstructural rinciple,on thepro-ductive nterfacing f a narrativexplicitlyramedbyanauthorbutattributableo historically realindividuals.A sociopolitical ontinuityinksLatinAmericannovels from their origins in the lateRenaissance hroniclesof the Conquest,and anoverwhelmingestimonial uality haracterizeshedominant strands of contemporary LatinAmericanliterature.Hence, any definition ofdocumentary literature must go beyond thereferentialiesbetween extsandhistorical vents.Insteadof pursuinga nebulousclassificationbasedon degreesof fictionalityandreferentiality,I have tried to identify those texts in which acrediblyreal story is given an explicitnarrativeframeworkby an interveningnarrator.Not in-significantly,these narratorsare acknowledgedand often well-knownnovelists.Thus, althoughI avoid the questionof fictionalityby concen-tratingon essentiallynonfictionaldocuments,I

givespecialprominenceo theissueof narrativity,thewaysacknowledged ovelists rame heirnar-rativesandusestandardnarrative trategies uchas complementaryndcontrapuntaluxtaposition(Poniatowska ndWalsh), rony GarciaMirquezand Valdes),authorialeditingand commentary(WalshandBarnet), oreshadowing ndechoingof events(GarciaMirquezand Walsh),anddis-junctive interplay between levels of text likenatural discourse and transcribed narrative(Barnet ndValdes).Thesestrategies o notmakethe five textsnovelsanymorethanthe parablesandothervarietiesof narrativemakethe Bibleanovel.Rather,byinvokingandechoing hestruc-turing principlesof mainstreamcontemporaryLatinAmericannovels,theyunderscorehecon-tinuity between imaginative literature anddocumentaryn LatinAmericanculture.ArizonaState UniversityTempe

Notes1Virtually all the major studies on Latin Americanliteraturemakethis point. See FerndndezMorenoand thepolemicof CollazosandCortfzar.MiguelBarnet,oneof theauthors examinenthisstudy,establishesundamentalriteriain La novelatestimonio:Socio-literatura Lacanci6n deRachel 125-50).2 Socialrealismhas yet to be adequately tudied n LatinAmerica.See,however, hemonographs yJuanCarlosPor-tantieroand by HarryL. Rosser.3 There is little criticismon Poniatowskabeyond briefnotes.SeeMiller ndGonzalez.Poniatowskapeaksof Nochein VidaLiteraria;he sameissuecontainscommentaries yotherwriters.4 Onecan makesuch a summary tatementonly at greatcriticalrisk. Clearly, t accordswith Carpentier's lo real-maravilloso ndCarlosFuentes'viewof thecontemporarySpanishAmerican novel in La nuevanovela hispanoamericana,indirect ontrast o the anamythopoesis f hard-lineMarx-ists like HernanVidal.5 See Fuentes' play Todos los gatos son pardos (1970),whichviewsthemassacre t Tlatelolco n the contextof theMexicanAztec-Christian-postrevolutionaryacrificialulture.6 Poniatowska edicateshernovelto herbrother an,who

diedat Tlatelolco.Except n a few quotations,however, hispersonalrelationships virtuallyabsent.

7 Despite he universally ecognizedmportance f GarciaMarquez'writings,Relatohasreceivedonlybriefcomment;seeMiiller-BerghndRuffinelli, Diezdias en el mar. Seealso Ruffinelli's Un periodistallamado. The standardmonographictudy, by fellownovelistMarioVargasLlosa,does not considerRelato.8 Thedifference etweenBiografia s a documentaryoveland Canci6nas a testimonialnovel is instructive.Canci6n,through he recollections f a fictionalcourtesanwho is inretirementtthetimeof the Castro evolution,erves s a pointof referenceor theoutlinesof modernCubansocioculturalhistory. See Chang-Rodriguez;Barnet, Miguel Barnetcharla ;and Bejel.AngelLuisFernandezGuerra reats herelationbetweenBarnet's wo majorworks.Fora thoroughanalysisof Biografiaas anexampleof theinnovativecontributions f Cubannarrative, ee GonzalezEchevarria.Although Gonzalez Echevarriafocuses onBiografta as a documentary novel, he emphasizesthesocioculturalssueof literatureersushistoryrather hanthenarrativetrategies stresshere.PedroM. Barreda oesnotconsider he unquestionable narrativity f Biografia.9 Therecentpublication f JuanFranciscoManzano'sTheLife and Poems of a Cuban Slave demonstrates the continu-ing interest n Cubanslaveliterature.

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Avellaneda, Andres Oscar. El tema del peronismo en la na-rrativa argentina. Diss. Univ. of Illinois 1973.Barnet, Miguel. The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave.Trans. Jacosta Innes. London: Bodley Head, 1966.. Biografia de un cimarr6n. Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1971.. La canci6n de Rachel. Barcelona: Estela, 1970.. Miguel Barnet charla con los editores de Vdrtice.V6rtice 2.2-3 (1979): 1-10.Barreda,Pedro M. The Black Protagonist in the CubanNovel.Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1979.BarrosSierra, Javier. 1968: Conversaciones con Gast6n GarciaCantd. Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1972.Bejel, Emilio. Entrevista: Miguel Barnet. Hispamerica no.29 (Aug. 1981): 41-52.Bissett, Judith Ismael. Consciousness-RaisingDramatic Struc-tures in Latin America's Theater of Commitment. Diss.

Arizona State Univ. 1976.Borello, Rodolfo A. Novela e historia: La visi6n fictiva delperiodo peronista en las letras argentinas. Anales deLiteratura Hispanoamericana no. 8 (1979): 29-72.

Campos Lemus, S6cratesA. El Otofo de revoluci6n(octubre).Mexico: Costa-Amic, 1973.Carpentier, Alejo. De lo real maravillosamenteamericano.In his Tientosy diferencias (ensayos). Mexico: Univ. Na-cional Aut6noma de Mexico, 1964, 115-35.Castellanos, Jorge, and Miguel A. Martinez. El dictador

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