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Title:The Multiple Voices of Latin American Literature

Author:Cornejo-Polar, Antonio, University of California, Berkeley

Publication Date:01-01-1994

Series:New Faculty Lecture Series (formerly Morrison Library Inaugural Address)

Publication Info:New Faculty Lecture Series (formerly Morrison Library Inaugural Address), UC Berkeley Library,UC Berkeley

Permalink:http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7kh5r6xz

Keywords:Latin American literature

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University of California, Berkeley1994

Morrison Library Inaugural Address Series

No. I

Editorial Board

Jan Carter

Myrtis Cochran

Carlos R. Delgado, issue editorChuck EckmanAnn GilbertPhoebe Janes

Jim Spohrer

Text format and design: Mary Scott

© 1994 UC Regents

ISSN: 1079-2732

Published by:

The Doe LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley, CA 94720-6000

This lecture was made possible thanks to the

generous support of the Class of 1941

World War II Memorial Chair of

Spanish-American Literature

We wish to thank the

Center for Latin American Studies

for supporting the publication of this issue.

PREFACE

The goal of this series is to foster schol-arship on campus by providing new fac-ulty members with the opportunity to sharetheir research interest with their colleaguesand students. We see the role of an aca-demic library not only as a place wherebibliographic materials are acquired,stored, and made accessible to the intel-lectual community, but also as an institu-tion that is an active participant in the gen-eration of knowledge.

New faculty members represent areasof scholarship the University wishes to de-velop or further strengthen. They are alsoamong the best minds in their respectivefields of specialization. The Morrison Li-brary will provide an environment wherethe latest research trends and research ques-tions in these areas can be presented anddiscussed.

Editorial Board

tonio Cornejo-Polar was born inArequipa, Perui, in 1936 and receivedhis B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from theUniversidad Nacional de San Agustinde Arequipa. He served as a professorthere until 1966 when he went to theUniversidad Nacional Mayor de SanMarcos in Lima, the oldest university inthe New World, established in 1554.During his last years there, he served asits Chancellor. He also taught at theUniversity of Pittsburgh. He currentlyholds the Class of 1941 World War IIMemorial Chair of Spanish-AmericanLiterature at the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley.

He has published nine books andmore than 50 articles as well as numer-ous collaborative publications andreviews. Profesor Cornejo-Polarfounded and continues to edit theRevista de Critica LiterariaLatinoamericana.

THE MULTIPLE VOICES OF LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Spanish version ..........7

English version......... 17

.jdklos amigos:

Lamento que mi ingles sea muy pobre, y que miingles oral sea impecablemente incorrecto, como locomprobaran ustedes de inmediato. Lo lamento porobvias y muchas razones, pero ahora -sobre todo-porqueno puedo ser lo suficientemente expresivo paraagradecer a la Universidad de Berkeley el habermehonrado con la posici6n de Class of 1941 World War IIMemorial Chair.

Recurrire a un topos de la retorica clasica: lossentimientos intensos se dicen con palabras simples.Gracias, entonces, al Canciller Chang-Lin Tien y a lasautoridades de la Universidad, gracias muy sinceras alos generosos miembros de la clase 1941 -en los quereconocemos a los hombres y mujeres que con su corajepreservaron la libertad de todos-, gracias al Center forLatin American Studies y a la Biblioteca y gracias -porsupuesto- a los colegas del Departamento de Espafiol yPortugues, en especial a su Chair, el profesor CharlesFaulhaber.

Se bien, eso si, que estoy asumiendoresponsabilidades muy grandes y graves y tambien seque no estoy especialmente preparado para enfrentarlas.Mi instalaci6n en los Estados Unidos fue tardia, y miexperiencia fundamental la realice en universidadesperuanas, especialmente la de San Marcos, fundada hace443 aflos, que -no tengo para que decirlo- es hartodistinta a las de los Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, elhaber pasado mas de veinte afnos ensefiando en una

. ...

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universidad hispanoamericana tal vez me permitaofrecer una vision mas intensa y mas comprometida desu literatura.

Por lo pronto, no creo que la literatura sea unespacio aut6nomo, aunque tampoco considero que seauna mera expresi6n de la realidad historico-social de laque surge. En verdad lo social esta dentro del discursoliterario y le confiere espesor y -a veces, con frecuencia-dramatismo. Despues de todo, aunque la paradoja fueplanteada con algo de ingenuidad, no deja de serinquietante que naciones que no han resuelto susproblemas basicos sean al mismo tiempo creadoras deuna cultura popular y una cultura de elite sin dudaadmirables.

Hoy no tenemos que reivindicar el valor de estaliteratura. Recordemos simplemente que Foucaultiniciaba una de sus mejores obras, Les mots et les choses,con una larga referencia a Borges, que la sombra delmismo Borges -para referirme a un solo autor-sobrevuela las paginas de las novelas de Umberto Eco,y que la estetica de la recepci6n suele encontrar algunosde sus argumentos mas sutiles en "Pierre Menard, autordel Quijote", celebre cuento del mismo Borges. Esimportante, cambiando ahora de referencia, recordar laspalabras de John Barth:

Praise be to the Spanish language and imagination! AsCervantes stands as an exemplar of pre-modernism and agreat precursor of much to come, and Jorge Luis Borgesas an exemplar of dernier cri modernism and at the sametime as a bridge between the end of the nineteenth cen-tury and the end of the twentieth, so Gabriel GarciaMarquez is in that enviable succession: an exemplarypostmodernist and a master of the storyteller's art.

Por supuesto, desde America Latina, todo esto lotomamos con una cierta ironia porque tal vez demorarondemasiado en "descubrirnos" y lo hicieron cuando elpensamiento postmoderno encontro excitantes lasposiciones marginales y subalternas, los bordes y lasfronteras, con lo que a veces se corre el riesgo deestetizar, irresponsablemente, la miseria real de unpueblo.

Esta tardanza produce tambien -de otro lado- quenuestra literatura de mas de cinco siglos aparezcageneralmente reducida a la de las ultimas decadas.

Obviamente me interesa mas que celebrar el exitode nuestros escritores contemporaneos expresar algunasideas acerca de la indole profunda de la literaturahispanoamericana.

Por lo pronto, si no queremos tergiversar -o peor:mutilar- la condici6n hispanoamericana, nos esnecesario reconocer que son nuestras las literaturasescritas en idiomas europeos, el espafiol y el portuguesfundarmentalmente, pero tambien en otros idiomaseuropeos que son propios de las naciones caribefias nohispanicas. De la misma manera son nuestras lasliteraturas orales en esos idiomas y tambien -y sobretodo- en las lenguas amerindias y las que se fueronrecreando desde el mundo africano, trasplantado aAmerica Latina muy temprano por ominosa obra deltrafico de esclavos.

En las historias tradicionales, las literaturas enlenguas nativas suelen considerarse en terminos de unalejana prehistoria, presuponiendo que la produccionliteraria amerindia dej6 de producirse con la conquista.Obviamente no es asi. La vitalidad actual de estas

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literaturas es asombrosa, asombrosa por la complejidad,intensidad y riqueza de sus sistemas semi6ticos ytambien -al mismo tiempo-porque representan un actode resistencia y reivindicaci6n etnica que dura ya cincosiglos.

Pero sucede, ademas, que estos viejos y renovadosdiscursos son capaces de tejer redes interculturales conbuena parte de los otros sectores de la literaturalatinoamericana, dialogando con ella -en dialogos aveces polemicos- y enriqueciendola con un trasfondosecular que sigue presente y actuante. Sin esas antiguaspalabras, hubieran sido imposibles las obras de MiguelAngel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquezu Octavio Paz (todos Premios Nobel de Literatura), perotambien las de Jose Maria Arguedas, Juan Rulfo, AugustoRoa Bastos, Carlos Fuentes o Ernesto Cardenal paramencionar s6lo ejemplos de primer rango. Roa Bastosdecia que escribir es "leer antes un texto no escrito,escuchar y oir antes los sonidos de un discurso oralinformulado aun pero presente ya en los [sonidos] arm6-nicos de la memoria".

En los uiltimos afios, de otro lado, se ha producidola dificil convergencia entre personajes populares quecuentan sus experiencias a alguin intelectual para quelas transcriba en forma de testimonio, socializando esasexperiencias y la conciencia desde la que se vive. Eneste campo el ejemplo paradigmatico seria el deRigoberta Menchui. St bien que la polemica en torno aeste genero es hoy excepcionalmente dura, pero lomenciono no para intervenir en ella sino para completaruna primera idea: la literatura latinoamericana esmultilinguie, multietnica y multicultural, no solamenteporque dentro de su espacio actuian varias lenguas,

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multiples conciencias etnicas y diversos valoresculturales, sino -muy especialmente- porque sunaturaleza profunda es inimaginable sin esosentreverados entrecruzamientos, que son la materiamisma con la que esta hecha. Literatura de limitesfluidos y porosos, agudamente descentrada por lamultiplicidad heterogenea de los sistemas que laconstituyen, la literatura hispanoamericana es, sin duda,un reto a la reflexion y a la imaginacion criticas.

Desde el punto de vista de la historia literaria elproblema es todavia mas complejo. A la obviasecuencialidad cronol6gica de los discursos se suma loque podria Ilamar la "verticalizaci6n" del tiempo. Elpoeta chileno Enrique Lihn dijo en un verso memo-rable: "somos contemporaneos de historias diferentes";y, en efecto, es asi. No solamente coexisten en un mismoespacio y en un mismo tiempo discursos que provienende ritmos hist6ricos diversos, a veces incompatibles; masincisivamente auin, dentro de un mismo texto conviven-y no siempre arm6nicamente- voces que vienen de esas"historias diferentes", pero coetaneas, y que bien puedenarticular en un solo enunciado conciencias que -cronol6gicamente percibidas- pueden estar separadaspor siglos.

En el Perui, por ejemplo, la novela mas audazmenteexperimental y mas puntualmente moderna de lasiiltimas dos o tres decadas es El zorro de arnbay el zorrode abajo de Jose Maria Arguedas, y en ella lacontemporaneidad mas precisa, con sus lenguajes yvalores, esta inextricablemente vinculada con mitos ehistorias indigenas que se recopilaron en el siglo XVIpero que, sin duda, se hunden en un tiempo harto maslejano.

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Tal vez seria bueno evocar en este momento a unafigura emblematica: la del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.Hijo de un noble capitAn espafiol y de una fiusta,pertenecio a la primera generacion de mestizosamericanos. Vivio en el Cuzco hasta su adolescencia,hablando los idiomas de sus padres y escuchando lanarracion tanto de la gesta de los conquistadores cuantolas gloriosas historias de un imperio que todavia nopodia creer en su derrota, historias que jamas pudoolvidar. Mas tarde viaja a Espafia y alli asimila la culturarenacentista (tanto que traduce impecablemente losDidlogos de Amor de Le6n Hebreo) y logra producir unade las mas finas e intensas prosas del Siglo de Orohispanico. Solamente entonces se decide a escribir sobrelo que le es mas entrafiablemente propio: la historia delimperio inca, de su conquista por los espanioles y de losprimeros afios del periodo colonial. Divide su obra endos libros: los Comentarios reales, para la epoca incaica,y la Historia del Peru, para la conquista y colonizaci6n.

Decia el maestro Jose Durand, profesor en estaUniversidad hasta el dia de su temprana muerte, queleyendo al Inca Garcilaso se descubre rapidamente queen su discurso se mezclan inextricablemente historia yautobiografia. Y no se trata uinicamente de que en efectoel fuera testigo de algunos de los acontecimientos querelata, o que escuchara la version de ellos de labios dequienes participaron directamente en esa historia; setrata, lo que es mucho mas importante, de que losComentarios y la Historia dan razon -apasionada raz6n-de la experiencia de un hombre de dos mundos, dosmundos fieramente encontrados por un acto deconquista, y a los que, sin embargo, debe fidelidadporque ambos forman parte de su doble linaje.

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Desde esta perspectiva, se pueden leer las obras delInca Garcilaso como un prolongado, tenaz y sutilesfuerzo por hacer compatibles, e inclusive arm6nicos,esos dos mundos, recurriendo para ello tanto a losprincipios de la historiografia providencialista cuanto alos de la filosofia neoplat6nica, con su ideal de armoniaentre los contrarios, pero es obvio -casi para cualquierlector- que ese esfuerzo concluye en un fracaso, unhermoso fracaso. No hay discurso que pueda suturarheridas tan profundas como las producidas por ladestruccion del imperio de los Incas, es decir por lacaida -para Garcilaso- del amado mundo materno, aquelque en menos de una generaci6n vio cambiar su podery esplendor en vasallaje injusto y humillante.

Tal vez porque en la obra de Garcilaso se mezclanlos deseos de hacer uno de lo que es vario y distintocon la dura realidad del enfrentamiento global entre dosculturas, es que -sobre todo los Comentanos- tuvierandesiguales lecturas: sus ecos se encuentran en numerosasutopias renacentistas europeas, cuyo modelo es en buenamedida el idealizado imperio incaico descrito porGarcilaso, pero tambien se escuchan en el origen de lasgrandes rebeliones indigenas del siglo XVIII, todas ellasfracasadas, y de las guerras criollas por la independencia,que un siglo despues fundan, con su victoria, lasrepuiblicas hispanoamericanas.

El Inca Garcilaso es un personaje tragico ("espafiolen America e indio en Espafia", como decia el historiadorRau?l Porras Barrenechea), victima de su deseo de unaarmonia imposible, armonia que construyetrabajosamente en cada pagina para que en la siguientese destruya con el fuego y la sangre de una conquistaque por un lado lo enorgullece, por el heroismo de su

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padre, y por otro lo entristece, por el duro destino desu estirpe materna. Destino tragico, sin duda, pero almismo tiempo, parad6jicamente, cimiento de undiscurso que pese a que se instala en la fractura de dosculturas funciona como dificil y enriquecedoraintercomunicaci6n de sus grandes c6digos deinterpretaci6n del mundo mediante un complejoproceso transcultural de resultados siempreimprevisibles.

En cualquier caso, por contradictorio que sea, lafigura del Inca Garcilaso promovio una de las grandesutopias hispanoamericanas: la del mestizaje, entendidacomo cohesi6n arm6nica de las muchas culturas que lahistoria acumul6 en su territorio. Es una utopiaconciliadora y consoladora que parece hermanar en unsolo gran torrente los muchos rios que coincidieron enesa geografia tanto fisica como espiritual que llamamosAmerica Latina, y que en alguin momento asumiocaracteres casi miticos. Aludo al pensamiento deVasconcelos que desde el contexto de la revoluci6nmexicana anunci6 el gozoso advenimiento de una "razac6smica".

Sin embargo, la desbordante pluralidad deexperiencias culturales que tejen la historiahispanoamericana hace suponer que esa utopia, encuanto afirma la unificaci6n de lo que es diverso, no esprecisamente la que mejor da raz6n de un mundo hechode muchos mundos y de una historia hecha de muchashistorias. Tal vez, entonces, sea necesario imaginar unaidentidad polimorfa, cambiante, dispuesta a aceptardisidencias y contradicciones.

Estoy pensando en el famoso capitulo de El reino deeste mundo, de Alejo Carpentier, en el que la ejecuci6n

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del lider de la rebeli6n de los esclavos de Haiti esfestejada como un triunfo por los colonizadoresfranceses, que efectivamente han visto la muerte deMackandal, y con ella el fin de la rebeli6n, pero tambienes festejada por sus seguidores que han visto,exactamente en el mismo acto, algo por completodistinto: la metamorfosis del lider en inalcanzable avey de esta manera reafirman -via la magia- el triunfo fi-nal de su levantamiento.

Y estoy pensando, tambien, en el doble eje deverosimilitudes que corre a lo largo de Cien ahos desoledad. En esta esplendida novela convergen nocionesde realidad que dificilmente pueden articularse en unasintesis que las englobe en una unidad superior. Quienesasumen como algo absolutamente natural que Remedios"la bella" asciende en cuerpo y alma al cielo o que todaslas mariposas amarillas rodean los encuentros er6ticosde Mauricio Babilonia, no pueden aceptar -mas quecomo maravilla tal vez satanica- el hielo artificial o eliman, e inversamente -claro- quienes creen sinproblemas en lo segundo remiten las acciones primerasal ambito de los milagros increibles. Tal vez parte de lagrandeza de la novela de Gabriel Garcia Marquezconsista en que en su discurso ambas versiones delmundo son legitimas y coexisten como opcionesexistenciales que -en conjunto- ofrecen una intensaexperiencia de plenitud.

Quiero decir, en suma, que tal vez mas que imaginaruna sintesis que convierte en homogeneo lo que en larealidad es incisivamente heter6clito, convengaesforzarse en comprender una cultura dial6gica, y eneste sentido profundamente democratica, tal comoefectivamente sucede en los grandes textos de la

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literatura hispanoamericana; imaginarla como unespacio abierto donde lenguas, etnias, culturas ehistorias diversas se enriquecen mediante ese dialogomuiltiple sin perder por ello sus caracteresidiosincraticos. Una cultura, entonces, donde lo uno ylo otro, to propio y lo ajeno convivan e interactuenproductivamente.

Jose Maria Arguedas decia que en cualquier pafshispanoamericano es posible que "el hombre noengrilletado ni embrutecido por el egoismo pueda vivir,feliz, todas las patrias". Es, por cierto, una nueva utopia;al menos, mientras la realidad de la miseria y la injusticiaen que viven nuestros pueblos haga imposible que esarelaci6n dial6gica sea simetrica e igualitaria y en la quecada quien, en la vida cotidiana, pueda autogestionarsu diferencia y definir el modo y las razones de sucomunicaci6n con los sujetos colectivos que le rodeany que forman parte de su propia constituci6n.

En ese caso la hermosa plenitud de la convergenciade "todas las patrias" sera no mera imagen y no s6lolenguaje; sera historia ejemplar y verdadera. Muchos,en muchas partes del mundo, la seguimos esperando.-

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friends:

I must apologize for my poor English, and for theimpeccably incorrect pronunciation that you will soonnotice. I am apologetic for many obvious reasons. Atthis moment I mainly regret not being expressive enoughto convey my gratitude to the University of Californiaat Berkeley and the Class of 1941 for having honoredme with the Class of 1941 World War II Memorial Chair.

I will make use of a topos of classic rhetoric: in-tense feelings are to be expressed in simple words. Manythanks, then, to Chancellor Chang Lin-Tien and theUniversity authorities, and thanks especially to the gen-erous members of the Class of 1941. We all recognizethat due to their courage the world was able to pre-serve its freedom. Thanks to The Center for Latin Ameri-can Studies and The Library; and, of course, thanks tomy friends from the Department of Spanish and Portu-guese, especially to its chairman, professor CharlesFaulhaber.

I know well that I am undertaking very large andserious responsibilities, and I also know that I am notespecially prepared to face them. My arrival in theUnited States occurred late in my career, and my basicexperience took place in Peruvian universities, mainlyat the University of San Marcos. Of course it is quitedifferent from universities in the United States. Never-theless having spent more than twenty years teachingin a Spanish American university will perhaps allow meto offer a more intense and committed vision of its lit-erature.

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To begin with, I do not believe that literature findsitself in an autonomous space, nor do I consider it tobe a mere expression of the historic and social realityfrom which it emerges. In truth, the social reality isfound within the literary discourse and it adds fullnessand often drama to it. Even though the following para-dox was proposed in a naive fashion, it continues to bedistressing: how is it that nations that have not yet beenable to resolve their basic problems are at the same timecreators of popular and elite cultures that are reallyadmirable?

Today we do not have to revindicate the value ofthis literature. Let us just simply recall that Foucaultbegan one of his best works, Les mots et les choses, witha long reference to Borges; that Borges's own shadow,just to mention one author, surrounds Umberto Eco'snovels, and that the Theory of Reception can find someof its most refined arguments in "Pierre Menard, autordel Quijote," one of Borges's most noted short stories.After all, and now changing references, it is importantto remember John Barth's words:

Praise be to the Spanish language and imagination! AsCervantes stands as an exemplar of premodernism and agreat precursor of much to come, and Jorge Luis Borgesas an exemplar of dernier cri modernism and at the sametime as a bridge between the end of the nineteenth cen-tury and the end of the twentieth, so Gabriel GarciaMarquez is in that enviable succession: an exemplarypostmodernist and a master of the storyteller's art.

Of course, in Latin America we take all this as ironicbecause the rest of the world might have taken too longto "discover" us, and when they finally did, it was whenpost-modern thought discovered that marginality andsubalternity, the borders and the fringes, were very ex-

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citing, excitement that at times risks irresponsibleesthetizations of a people's poverty.

On the other hand, this tardy discovery also reducesour literature of more than five centuries to the pro-duction of the last few decades.

Obviously, rather than merely celebrating the suc-cess of our contemporary writers, I am here interestedin expressing some ideas about the profound nature ofSpanish-American Literature.

Moreover, if we do not want to distort -or worseyet: if we do not want to mutilate the Spanish Ameri-can condition- it is necessary to embrace as ours notonly the literature written in European languages, Span-ish and Portuguese basically, but also those from thenon-Hispanic Caribbean. Similarly, the oral literaturesin those languages are ours but also ours are the oralliteratures in Amerindian languages and in the narra-tives recreated from the African world in their earlytransplantation to Latin America by the tragic practiceof slave trading.

In traditional literary studies, native literatures areusually considered as a long vanished prehistory, un-der the assumption that Amerindian literary produc-tion ceased with the Conquest. This is not the case. Thepresent vitality of these literatures is amazing. Amazingbecause of the complexity, intensity, and wealth of theirsemiotic systems, and also because at the same time theyrepresent an act of ethnic resistance and vindication thathas lasted for five centuries.

But it so happens that these old and renewed dis-courses weave intercultural webs with a large part of

...........9........

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other sectors of Latin American literature, establishingdialogs with it -dialogs that are sometimes polemic- andenriching it with an age-old background that continuesto be current and dynamic. Without this venerable tra-dition it would have been impossible to have the worksof Miguel Angel Asturias, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel GarciaMarquez, or Octavio Paz (all Nobel Prizes), but also theworks ofJose Maria Arguedas, Juan Rulfo, Augusto RoaBastos, Carlos Fuentes or Ernesto Cardenal, to mentionjust a few of the most notable examples. Roa Bastos saysthat to write is: "to read a non-written text ahead oftime, to listen and hear the sounds of a non-formulatedspeech ahead of time but already present in the harmo-nious sounds of the memory."

In the last few years, there has been a difficult con-vergence between illiterate persons who tell their expe-riences to some intellectual who then puts them in thepublic eye in the form of a testimony, thus offering apublic space to voices never heard before. The paradig-matic example in this field is Rigoberta Menchui. I men-tion it only to illustrate my first idea. Latin Americanliterature is multilingual, multiethnic, and multicultural.Not only because within its own space one finds theinteraction of various languages, multiple ethnic con-sciences, and diverse cultural values; but -especially-because its most profound nature is unimaginable with-out the presence of these complex intermixtures thatconstitute the very matter of which it is made. A litera-ture of fluid and permeable boundaries, decentered bythe heterogenous multiplicity of the systems that formit, Spanish American literature is really a challenge tocritical conceptions and imagination.

From the point of view of literary history, the prob-

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lem is still more complex. To the obvious chronologicalsequentiality of discourses it is necessary to considerwhat could be called the "verticalization" of time. TheChilean poet Enrique Lihn said in a memorable verse:"We are contemporaries of different histories;" and, infact, this is so. There are discourses from diverse his-torical planes, sometimes incompatible discourses, thatcoexist in a common space and time. More importantlyyet, within one and the same text different voices canbe heard. Sometimes multiple voices, voices that comefrom those "different histories" but that are coetaneous,and that at the same time can articulate a common con-sciousness in one enunciation that chronologicallymight be perceived as separated by the barrier of thecenturies.

In Peru for example, the most boldly experimentaland rigorously modern novel of the last two or threedecades is El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo by JoseMaria Arguedas. In this work, the most precisecontemporariness along with its own values and lan-guages is inextricably linked to indigenous myths andstories that were set down in the sixteenth century butthat without a doubt sprang from much older times.

At this point it might be appropriate to invoke anemblematic figure: the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Theson of a noble Spanish captain and a nusta (Inca prin-cess), he belonged to the first generation of Americanmestizos. He lived in Cuzco, the imperial city of theIncas, until his adolescence. Speaking the languages ofboth his parents, he listens to the narration of the con-quistadors' deeds as well as to the glorious stories of anEmpire that they could still not believe had been de-feated, stories that he is never able to forget.

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Later, he travels to Spain, where he assimilates Re-naissance culture, and at the same time learns to pro-duce one of the finest and most intense prose styles ofthe Hispanic Golden Age. Only then does he decide towrite about that which touches him most deeply: thehistory of the Inca Empire, its conquest by the Span-iards, and the first years of the colonial era.

The late Jose Durand, the unforgettable professorof Berkeley, used to say that upon reading the IncaGarcilaso one could rapidly discern that his discoursemixes history and autobiography. And this observationdoes not only refer to the fact that he was an eyewitnessto some of the events that he narrates; or that he lis-tened to the testimonies of those who participated di-rectly in this history. It deals with something that is moresignificant: The Comentanos reales tell us -passionately-about the experience of a man of two worlds, two worldsthat fiercely confront each other by the act of conquest,two worlds to whith he, however, owes loyalty becauseboth are part of his double ancestry.

From this perspective, Inca Garcilaso's works canbe read as a prolonged, tenacious, and subtle effort tomake these worlds compatible or even harmonious; forwhich he resorted to the principles of providencialisthistoriography as well as those of Neoplatonic philoso-phy in his attempt to create harmony between oppo-sites. However, it becomes obvious that this effort endsin failure, a beautiful failure. There is no discourse ca-pable of healing the deep wounds caused by the de-struction of the Inca Empire, that for Garcilaso meantthe beloved maternal world, a world that in less thanone generation he saw change from a position of powerand splendor to an unjust and humiliating servitude.

The historian Rail Porras Barrenechea used to saythat the Inca Garcilaso is a tragic character because heis "a Spaniard in America, and an Indian in Spain." Hewas a victim of his own desire for an impossible har-mony, a harmony that he builds in each page, only todestroy it in the next with the fire and the blood ofconquest. A conquest that on one side instills pride inhim because of the heroism of his father, and on theother saddens him because of the harsh destiny of hismother's heritage. It is a tragic destiny, but paradoxi-cally it is also the foundation of a new cultural dynamic.In spite of positioning itself between the fractures oftwo cultures, this discourse functions also as a difficultand enriching intercommunication between its greatcodes of interpretation of the world via a complextranscultural process that always results in the unex-pected.

In any case, no matter how contradictory he is, theInca Garcilaso supports one of Hispanic America's great-est utopias: "mestizaje," understood as the true cohe-sion of the many cultures that history accumulated inits territory. It is a conciliatory and comforting utopiathat seems to gather into one unique torrent the manyrivers that converged in this physical and spiritual ge-ography we call Latin America. This idea at one pointreached mythical proportions. I am referring to thethought of Jose Vasconcelos, who, from the context ofthe Mexican Revolution joyously announced the arrivalof a "cosmic race."

However, the overpowering plurality of culturalexperiences that make up the history of Hispanoamericapoints to the fact that this utopia, in affirming the uni-fication of what is essentially diverse, is not precisely

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the best suited for a world made of many worlds, and ahistory made of many histories. Perhaps, then, it mightbecome necessary to imagine a polymorphous andchanging identity, ready to accept heterodoxies and con-tradictions.

I am thinking of the famous chapter in AlejoCarpentier's El reino de este mundo, when the executionof Mackandal the leader of the slave rebellion in Haiti,is celebrated as a triumph by the French colonizers whohave in fact witnessed his death, but it is also celebratedby his followers, who have seen something totally dif-ferent in exactly the same occurrence: the metamorpho-sis of the leader into a powerful bird, an act of magicreaffirming the final triumph of their rebellion.

I am thinking as well of the double axis of verisi-militude that runs through Cien anos de soledad. In thissplendid novel there is a conflict of different notions ofreality that can hardly be articulated as a synthesis of asuperior unity. Those who accept, as something per-fectly natural, events such as the ascendance to Heavenin body and soul of Remedios "the beautiful," or thatyellow butterflies always surround Mauricio Babilonia'serotic encounters, can only accept as a satanic wondersome modest technological progress. On the other hand,of course, those who believe without doubt in the lat-ter circumstances dismiss the former to the realm ofincredible miracles. It may be that the magnificence ofGabriel Garcia Marquez's novel rests upon the fact thatin it both versions of the world are legitimate, and thatthey coexist as existential options that as a whole offeran intense experience of plenitude.

Summing up, I want to say that rather than to imag-

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ine a synthesis that makes homogeneous what in realityis notably heterogeneous, it would be better to attemptan understanding of a dialogic culture, a culture that inthis sense is profoundly democratic, as in fact is seen inthe great texts of Spanish-American literature. It mightbe better to imagine this culture as an open space wherediverse languages, ethnicities, cultures, and historiesenrich each other by means of that multiple dialoguewithout losing their idiosyncratic character. A culture,where identity and alterity, where what is one's own oranother's, live together and interact in a productive man-ner.

Jose Maria Arguedas would say that in any SpanishAmerican country, "any man free of chains and free ofthe vileness caused by egotism can live, happily, as anative of all countries." Of course this is another uto-pia, and it will be one as long as the reality of miseryand injustice in which our peoples live make it impos-sible for this dialogic relationship to be one of symme-try and equality. A reality where each and everyone indaily life can resolve his or her own differences and candefine the manner, the limits, and the reasons for his orher communication with the different social and ethnicgroups that surround and form part of their being.

In that case the beautiful fullness stemming from theconvergence of "all our nations" will be more than justimages or words; it will be a true and exemplary history.Many of us around the world continue to hope. U

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