Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
I
would
have
preferred
this
meeting
to
have
been
called
a
colloquium
instead
of
lecture
–
a
dialogue
of
doubts
and
assertions
on
the
subject
that
concerns
us.
Let
us
start
by
analysing
the
antecedents
of
Latin
American
literature
in
general,
focusing
our
attention
on
those
aspects
that
have
most
connection
with
the
novel.
Let
us
follow
the
sources
back
to
the
millenarian
origins
of
indigenous
literature
in
its
three
great
moments:
Maya,
Aztec
and
Inca.
The
reader,
reciting
stories
or
‘great
language’,
the
only
person
who
understood
what
the
pictograms
meant,
carried
out
an
interpretation,
recreating
them
for
the
enlightenment
of
those
who
listened.
Later,
these
painted
stories
become
fixed
in
the
memory
of
the
listeners
and
pass
in
oral
form
from
generation
to
generation
until
the
alphabet
brought
by
the
Spanish
fixes
them
in
their
native
tongues
with
Latin
characters
or
directly
in
Spanish.
In
this
way
indigenous
texts
come
to
our
knowledge
with
very
little
exposure
to
European
corruption.
The
reading
of
these
documents
is
what
has
allowed
us
to
affirm
that,
among
the
native
Americans,
history
has
more
of
the
charac-‐
teristics
of
the
novel
than
of
history.
They
are
accounts
in
which
reality
is
dissolved
in
fable,
legend,
the
trappings
of
beauty
and
in
which
the
imagin-‐
ation,
by
dint
of
describing
all
the
reality
that
it
contains,
ends
up
re-‐creating
a
reality
that
we
might
call
surrealist.
This
characteristic
of
the
annulment
of
reality
through
imagination
and
the
re-‐creation
of
a
more
transcendental
reality
is
combined
with
a
constant
annulment
of
time
and
space
as
well
as
something
more
significant:
the
use
and
abuse
of
parallel
expressions,
i.e.
the
parallel
use
of
different
words
to
designate
the
same
object,
to
convey
the
same
idea
and
express
the
same
feelings.
I
wish
to
draw
attention
to
this
point
–
the
parallelism
in
the
indigen-‐
ous
texts
allows
an
exercise
of
nuances
that
we
find
hard
to
appreciate
but
which
undoubtedly
permitted
a
poetic
gradation
destined
to
induce
certain
states
of
consciousness
which
were
taken
to
be
magic.
If
we
return
to
the
theme
of
the
origin
of
a
literary
genre,
similar
to
the
novel,
among
the
pre-‐Colombian
peoples
it
is
necessary
to
link
the
birth
of
this
novel
form
with
the
epic.
The
heroic
legend,
exceeding
the
possibilities
of
historical
fiction,
was
sung
by
the
rhapsodists
–
the
great
voices
of
the
tribes
or
‘cuicanimes’
who
toured
the
cities
reciting
the
texts
in
order
that
the
beauty
of
their
songs
would
be
disseminated
among
the
peoples
like
the
golden
blood
of
their
gods.
These
epic
songs
that
are
so
abundant
in
pre-‐Columbian
literature,
and
so
little
known,
possess
what
we
call
‘fictional
plot’
and
what
the
Spanish
friars
and
missionaries
termed
‘tricks’.
These
fictional
tales
were
originally
the
testimony
of
past
epochs;
the
memory
and
fame
of
high
deeds
that
others
on
hearing
would
desire
to
emulate,
this
literature
of
reality
and
fable
is
broken
in
the
instant
of
servi-‐
tude
and
remains
as
one
of
the
many
broken
vessels
of
those
great
civilisa-‐
tions.
Other
narratives
will
follow
–
in
this
same
documentary
form
–
recount-‐
ing
not
the
evidence
of
greatness
but
of
misery,
not
the
testimony
of
liberty
but
of
slavery,
no
longer
the
statements
of
the
masters
but
those
of
the
subjects
and
a
new,
emerging
American
literature
attempting
to
fill
the
empty
silences
of
an
epoch.
However,
the
literary
genres
that
flourished
in
the
Iberian
peninsulas
–
the
realistic
novel
and
the
theatre
–
were
not
to
put
down
roots
here.
On
the
contrary,
it
is
the
indigenous
effervescence,
the
sap
and
the
blood,
river,
sea
and
mirage
that
affects
the
first
Spaniard
to
write
the
first
great
American
‘novel’
for
the
‘True
Story
of
the
Events
of
the
Conquest
of
New
Spain’
written
by
Bernal
Diaz
del
Castillo
deserves
to
be
called
no
less.
Is
it
not
rather
bold
to
describe
as
a
‘novel’
what
that
soldier
called
not
history
but
‘true
history’?
But
are
not
novels
frequently
the
true
history?
I
repeat
the
question:
is
it
really
boldness
to
describe
as
a
novel
the
work
of
this
illustrious
chronicler?
2
what
happened
was
reality
and
it
will
seem
to
them
increasingly
a
work
of
pure
imagination.
Indeed,
even
Bernal
himself
says
no
less,
next
to
the
very
walls
of
Tenochtitlan:
“this
seemed
to
be
the
work
of
enchantment
that
is
recounted
in
the
book
of
Amadis!”
But
this
is
the
work
of
a
Spaniard
–
it
will
be
said
–
although
the
only
thing
Spanish
about
it
is
its
having
been
written
by
a
‘peninsular’
resident
in
Santiago
de
los
Caballeros
de
Guatemala
–
where
that
glorious
manuscript
is
kept
–
and
its
having
been
composed
in
the
old
language
of
Castile
although
it
partakes
of
that
masquerade
characteristic
of
indigenous
literature.
To
Don
Marcelino
Menendez
y
Pelayo
–
this
expert
in
classic
Spanish
literature
–
the
taste
of
this
prose
is
strange
and
the
fact
that
it
has
been
written
by
a
soldier
he
finds
surprising.
It
escapes
this
eminent
writer
that
Bernal,
at
the
age
of
eighty,
had
not
only
heard
many
texts
of
indigenous
literature
being
recited,
being
influenced
by
it,
but
through
osmo-‐
sis
had
absorbed
America
and
had
already
become
American.
As
from
this
moment,
all
Latin
American
literature,
in
song
and
novel,
not
only
becomes
a
testimony
for
each
epoch
but
also,
as
stated
by
the
Vene-‐
zuelan
writer
Arturo
Uslar
Pietri,
an
“instrument
of
struggle”.
All
the
great
literature
is
one
of
testimony
and
vindication,
but
far
from
being
a
cold
dossier
these
are
moving
pages
written
by
one
conscious
of
his
power
to
impress
and
convince.
Will
the
south
give
us
a
mestizo?
The
mestizo
par
excellence
since
–
in
order
for
nothing
to
be
lacking
–
he
was
the
first
American
exile:
Inca
Garci-‐
laso.
This
Creole
exile
follows
the
indigenous
voices
already
extinguished
in
his
denunciation
of
the
oppressors
of
Peru.
The
Inca
offers
us
in
his
magni-‐
ficent
prose
not
only
the
native
American
–
nor
only
the
Spanish
–
but
the
mixture
materialised
in
the
fusion
of
the
bloods,
and
in
the
same
demand
for
life
and
justice.
To
start
with
nobody
discerns
the
‘message’
in
the
prose
of
Inca.
This
will
be
clarified
during
the
struggle
for
independence.
Inca
will
then
appear
with
the
dignity
of
the
Indian
that
knew
how
to
make
fun
of
the
empire
of
“the
two
knives”
–
that
is
to
say
civil
and
ecclesiastical
censorship.
The
Spanish
authorities,
slow
to
fathom
the
message
containing
so
much
spirit,
imagin-‐
ation
and
melancholy,
wisely
order
the
confiscation
of
the
story
of
Inca
Garci-‐
laso
where
the
Indians
have
“learned
so
many
dangerous
things.”
3
Not
only
poetry
and
works
of
fiction
bear
witness.
The
least
expected
authors
such
as
Francisco
Javier
Clavijero,
Francisco
Javier
Alegre,
Andres
Calvo,
Manuel
Fabri,
Andres
de
Guevara
gave
birth
to
a
literature
of
exiles
which
is
–
and
will
continue
to
be
–
a
testimony
of
its
epoch.
Even
the
Guatemalan
poet
Rafael
Landívar
has
his
form
of
rebellion.
His
protest
is
silence
–
he
calls
the
Spanish
‘Hispani’
without
qualifying
the
adjective.
We
refer
to
Landívar
because,
despite
being
the
least
known,
he
should
be
considered
the
standard
bearer
of
American
literature
as
the
authentic
expression
of
our
lands,
our
people
and
landscapes.
According
to
Pedro
Henriquez-‐Urena,
“among
the
poets
of
the
Spanish
colonies
he
is
the
first
master
of
landscape,
the
first
to
break
definitively
with
the
conventions
of
the
Renaissance
and
discover
the
characteristic
features
of
nature
in
the
New
World
–
its
flora
and
fauna,
its
countryside
and
mountains,
its
lakes
and
waterfalls.
In
his
descriptions
of
customs,
of
the
crafts
and
the
games
there
is
an
amusing
vivacity
and
–
throughout
the
poem
–
a
deep
sympathy
and
understanding
of
the
survival
of
the
original
cultures.”
In
1781
in
Modena,
Italy,
there
appeared
under
the
title
of
‘Rusticatio
Mexicana’
a
poetic
work
of
3,425
Latin
hexameters,
in
10
cantos,
written
by
Rafael
Landívar.
One
year
later
in
Bologna
the
second
edition
appeared.
The
poet
called
by
Menendez
y
Pelayo
‘the
Virgil
of
the
modern
age’
proclaimed
to
the
Europeans
the
excellence
of
the
land,
the
life
and
the
peoples
of
America.
He
was
concerned
for
the
people
of
the
Old
World
to
know
that
E1
Jorullo,
a
Mexican
volcano,
could
rival
Vesuvius
and
Etna,
that
the
waterfalls
and
caves
of
San
Pedro
Martir
in
Guatemala
were
the
equals
of
the
famous
fountains
of
Castalia
and
Aretusa
and
referring
to
the
cenzontle
–
the
bird
whose
song
has
400
tones
–
he
elevated
it
above
the
realm
of
the
nightingale.
He
sings
the
praises
of
the
countryside,
of
the
gold
and
silver
that
was
filling
the
world
with
valuable
coins
and
the
sugar
loaves
offered
at
royal
tables.
Fifty
years
later,
Andres
Bello
was
to
renovate
the
American
adventure
in
his
famous
‘Silva’,
an
immortal
and
perfect
work
in
which
the
nature
of
the
New
World
appears
again
with
maize
the
leader
–
as
haughty
chief
of
the
corn
tribe
–
the
cacao
in
‘coral
urns’,
the
coffee
plants,
the
banana,
the
tropics
in
all
their
vegetable
and
animal
power,
contrasting
the
impoverished
inhabitant
with
this
grandiose
vision
‘of
the
rich
soil.’
It
is
at
this
very
moment
that
the
voice
of
Sarmiento
is
heard
posing
his
famous
dilemma
at
the
threshold
of
the
century:
‘civilisation
or
barbarism’.
Indeed,
Sarmiento
himself
will
be
startled
when
he
becomes
aware
that
‘Facundo’
turns
his
arms
against
him
and
against
everyone,
declaring
himself
to
be
the
authentic
representative
of
Creole
America,
of
the
America
that
refuses
to
die
and
attempts
to
break
–
with
a
breast
already
hardened
–
the
antithetical
scheme
of
civilisation
and
barbarism
in
order
to
find
between
these
two
extremes
the
point
where
the
American
peoples
are
able
to
find
their
authentic
personality
with
their
own
essential
values.
In
the
middle
of
the
last
century
another
romantic,
no
less
passionate,
appears
in
Guatemala:
José
Batres
Montúfar.
In
the
midst
of
tales
of
festive
character
the
reader
feels
that
he
should
forget
the
fiesta
to
listen
to
the
poetry.
The
immortal
José
Batres
Montúfar,
with
abundant
charm
tinged
with
bitterness,
was
able
to
get
to
the
core
of
issues
that
already
–
in
the
middle
of
the
past
century
–
were
highly
charged.
Another
voice
was
to
ring
out
from
north
to
south,
that
of
José
Martí.
His
presence
was
felt,
whether
as
an
exile
or
in
his
beloved
Cuba,
the
fre
of
his
speech
as
poet
or
journalist
being
combined
with
the
example
of
his
sacrifice.
The
20th
century
is
full
of
poets,
poets
that
have
nothing
more
to
say
with
very
few
exceptions.
Among
the
latter
stand
out
the
immortal
Rubén
Darío
and
Juan
Ramón
Molina
from
Honduras.
The
poets
flee
from
reality,
maybe
because
this
is
one
of
the
ways
of
being
a
poet.
But
there
is
nothing
living
in
much
of
their
work
which
instead
tend
towards
garrulity.
They
are
ignorant
of
the
clear
lesson
of
the
native
rhapsodists,
they
are
forgetful
of
the
colonial
craftsmen
of
our
great
literature,
satisfied
with
the
bloodless
imitation
of
the
poetry
of
other
latitudes
and
ridicule
those
who
sang
the
bold
gestures
of
the
liberation
struggle,
considering
them
dazzled
by
a
local
patriotism.
It
is
only
when
the
First
World
War
is
passed
that
a
handful
of
men
–
men
and
artists
–
embark
on
the
reconquest
of
their
own
tradition.
In
their
encounter
with
the
indigenous
peoples
they
drop
anchor
in
their
Spanish
6
home
port
and
return
with
the
message
that
they
have
to
deliver
to
the
future.
Latin
American
literature
will
be
reborn
under
other
signs
–
no
longer
that
of
verse.
Now
the
prose
is
tactile,
plural
and
irreverent
in
its
attitude
to
conventions
–
to
serve
the
purpose
of
this
new
crusade
whose
first
move
was
to
plunge
into
reality
not
so
as
to
objectify
but
rather
to
penetrate
the
facts
in
order
to
identify
fully
with
the
problems
of
humanity.
Nothing
human
–
nothing
which
is
real
–
will
be
foreign
to
this
literature
inspired
by
contact
with
America.
And
this
is
the
case
of
the
Latin
American
novel.
Nobody
doubts
that
the
Latin
American
novel
is
at
the
leading
edge
of
its
genre
in
the
world.
It
is
cultivated
in
all
our
countries,
by
writers
of
different
tendencies,
which
means
that
in
the
novel
everything
is
forged
from
American
material
–
the
human
witness
of
our
historic
moment.
We,
the
Latin
American
novelists
of
today,
working
within
the
tradition
of
engagement
with
our
peoples
which
has
enabled
our
great
literature
to
develop
–
our
poetry
of
substance
–
also
have
to
reclaim
lands
for
our
dispossessed,
mines
for
our
exploited
workers,
to
raise
demands
in
favour
of
the
masses
who
perish
in
the
plantations,
who
are
scorched
by
the
sun
in
the
banana
fields,
who
turn
into
human
bagasse
in
the
sugar
refineries.
It
is
for
this
reason
that
–
for
me
–
the
authentic
Latin
American
novel
is
the
call
for
all
these
things,
it
is
the
cry
that
echoes
down
the
centuries
and
is
pronounced
in
thousands
of
pages.
A
novel
that
is
genuinely
ours;
determined
and
loyal
–
in
its
pages
–
to
the
cause
of
the
human
spirit,
to
the
fists
of
our
workers,
to
the
sweat
of
our
rural
peasants,
to
the
pain
for
our
under-‐
nourished
children;
calling
for
the
blood
and
the
sap
of
our
vast
lands
to
run
once
more
towards
the
seas
to
enrich
our
burgeoning
new
cities.
The
Latin
American
novel,
our
novel,
cannot
betray
the
great
spirit
that
has
shaped
–
and
continues
to
shape
–
all
our
great
literature.
If
you
write
novels
merely
to
entertain
–
then
burn
them!
This
might
be
the
message
delivered
with
evangelical
fervour
since
if
you
do
not
burn
them
they
will
anyway
be
erased
from
the
memory
of
the
people
where
a
poet
or
novelist
should
aspire
to
remain.
Just
consider
how
many
writers
there
have
been
who
–
down
the
ages
–
have
written
novels
to
entertain!
And
who
remembers
7
them
now?
On
the
other
hand,
how
easy
it
is
to
repeat
the
names
of
those
amongst
us
who
have
written
to
bear
witness.
To
bear
witness.
The
novelist
bears
witness
like
the
apostle.
Like
Paul
trying
to
escape,
the
writer
is
confronted
with
the
pathetic
reality
of
the
world
that
surrounds
him
–
the
stark
reality
of
our
countries
that
overwhelms
and
blinds
us
and,
throwing
us
to
our
knees,
forces
us
to
shout
out:
WHY
DO
YOU
PERSECUTE
ME?
Yes,
we
are
persecuted
by
this
reality
that
we
cannot
deny,
which
is
lived
in
the
flesh
by
the
people
of
the
Mexican
revolution,
embodied
in
persons
such
as
Mariano
Azuela,
Agustin
Yanez
and
Juan
Rulfo
whose
convictions
are
as
sharp
as
a
knife;
those
who
share
with
Jorge
Icaza,
Ciro
Alegría,
Jesús
Lara
the
shout
of
protest
against
the
exploitation
and
abandonment
of
the
Indian;
those
who
with
Romulo
Gallegos
in
‘Done
Bábara’
create
for
us
our
Prometheus.
Here
is
Horacio
Quiroga
who
frees
us
from
the
nightmare
of
the
tropics,
a
nightmare
that
is
as
peculiar
to
him
as
his
style
is
American.
‘Los
ros
profundos’
of
José
María
Arguedas,
the
‘Rio
oscuro’
of
the
Argentinian
Alfredo
Varela,
‘Hijo
de
hombre’
of
the
Paraguayan
Roa
Bastos
and
‘La
ciudad
y
los
perros’
of
the
Peruvian
Vargas
Llosa
make
us
see
how
the
life-‐blood
of
the
working
people
is
drained
in
our
lands.
Mancisidor
takes
us
to
the
oil
fields
to
which
are
drawn
–
leaving
their
homes
–
the
inhabitants
of
‘Cases
muertas’
of
Miguel
Otero
Silva...
David
Vinas
confronts
us
with
the
tragic
Patagonia,
Enrique
Wernicke
sweeps
us
along
with
the
waters
that
overwhelm
whole
communities
while
Verbitsky
and
María
de
Jesús
lead
us
to
the
miserable
shanty
towns,
the
Dantesque
and
subhuman
quarters
of
our
great
cities...
Teitelboim
in
‘E1
hijo
del
salitre’
tells
us
of
the
gruelling
work
in
the
saltpetre
mines
while
Nicomedes
Guzman
makes
us
share
in
the
lives
of
the
children
in
the
Chilean
working
class
districts.
We
feel
the
countryside
of
E1
Salvador
in
‘Jaragua’
of
Napoleón
Rodríguez
Ruiz
and
our
small
villages
in
‘Cenizas
del
Izalco’
of
Flakol
and
Clarivel
Alegria.
We
cannot
think
of
the
pampas
without
speaking
of
‘Don
Segundo
Sombra’
by
Guiraldes
nor
speak
of
the
jungle
without
‘La
voragine’
of
Eustasio
Rivera,
nor
of
the
Negroes:
without
Jorge
Amado,
nor
of
the
Brazilian
plains
without
the
‘Gran
Sertao’
of
Guimaraes
Rosa,
nor
of
the
plains
of
Venezuela
without
Ramón
Díaz
Sánchez.
As
true
Latin
Americans
the
beauty
of
expression
excites
us
and
–
for
this
reason
–
each
one
of
our
novels
is
a
verbal
feat.
Alchemy
is
at
work.
We
know
it.
It
is
no
easy
task
to
understand
in
the
executed
work
all
the
effort
and
determination
invested
in
the
materials
used
–
the
words.
Yes,
I
say
words
–
but
by
what
laws
and
rules
they
have
been
trans-‐
formed!
They
have
been
set
as
the
pulse
of
worlds
in
formation.
They
ring
like
wood,
like
metals.
This
is
onomatopoeia.
In
the
adventure
of
our
language
the
first
aspect
that
demands
attention
is
onomatopoeia.
How
many
echoes
–
composed
or
disintegrated
–
of
our
landscape,
our
nature
are
to
be
found
in
our
words,
our
sentences.
The
novelist
embarks
on
a
verbal
adventure,
an
instinctive
use
of
words.
One
is
guided
along
by
sounds.
One
listens,
listens
to
the
characters.
Our
best
novels
do
not
seem
to
have
been
written
but
spoken.
There
is
verbal
dynamics
in
the
poetry
enclosed
in
the
very
word
itself
and
that
is
revealed
first
as
sound
and
afterwards
as
concept.
This
is
why
the
great
Spanish
American
novels
are
vibrantly
musical
in
the
convulsion
of
the
birth
of
all
the
things
that
are
born
with
them.
Another
language
is
going
to
rain
its
sparkle
over
sounds
and
words.
The
language
of
images.
Our
novels
seem
to
be
written
not
only
with
words
but
with
images.
Quite
a
few
people
when
reading
our
novels
see
them
cinematically.
And
this
is
not
because
they
pursue
a
dramatic
statement
of
independence
but
because
our
novelists
are
engaged
in
universalising
the
voice
of
their
peoples
with
a
language
rich
in
sounds,
rich
in
fable
and
rich
in
images.
This
is
not
a
language
artificially
created
to
provide
scope
for
the
play
of
the
imagination
or
so-‐called
poetic
prose;
it
is
a
vivid
language
that
preserves
in
its
popular
speech
all
the
lyricism,
the
imagination,
the
grace,
the
high-‐spiritidness
that
characterise
the
language
of
the
Latin
American
novel.
Word
and
language
enable
the
reader
to
participate
in
the
life
of
our
novelistic
creations.
Unsettling,
disturbing,
forcing
the
attention
of
the
reader
who
–
forgetting
his
daily
life
–
will
enter
into
the
situations
and
personalities
of
a
novel
tradition
that
retains
intact
its
humanistic
values.
Nothing
is
used
to
detract
from
mankind
but
rather
to
perfect
it
and
this
is
perhaps
what
wins
over
and
unsettles
the
reader,
that
which
transforms
our
novel
into
a
vehicle
of
ideas,
an
interpreter
of
peoples
using
as
instrument
a
language
with
a
literary
dimension,
with
imponderable
magical
value
and
profound
human
projection.
From:
Les
Prix
Nobel
en
1967,
Editor
Ragnar
Granit,
[Nobel
Foundation],
Stockholm,
1968
10