TOWARDS A GENRE OF RETURN IN THE CONTEMPORARY CENTRAL AMERICAN NOVEL by SETH MICHAEL ROBERTS CONSTANCE JANIGA-PERKINS, COMMITTEE CHAIR STEVEN BUNKER ANA CORBALÁN SARAH MOODY WILLIAM WORDEN A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2018 Copyright Seth Michael Roberts 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This dissertation examines exile in four contemporary Central American novels and focuses on the return of each protagonist after an extended absence. The works establish homecoming as a critical feature of Central American literature and include El asco by Horacio Castellanos Moya, Cruz de olvido by Carlos Cortés, El retorno de los mayas by Gaspar Pedro González, and Con pasión absoluta by Carol Zardetto. The aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that return represents a significant yet often underappreciated aspect of displacement in literature and criticism. The motivations for each character’s flight and eventual trip home are unique, and the distinctiveness of each path is mirrored in the various responses to the experience. The novels also approach return from differences of class, race, and gender that inform the perspectives and outcomes of each journey. Return is a dynamic process that contrasts memories of origins with the sudden encounter with an altered home. An important factor is the underlying tension between what was left behind and the people or places that appear unfamiliar after an extended absence. These journeys and their aftermaths spark difficult encounters and myriad obstacles. This dissertation establishes that exile and its repercussions do not cease once displacement comes to an end. The protagonists defy the assumption that exiles will seamlessly reengage with long-absent communities. In each novel, return is only the first step in a succession of trials and self- discoveries that reflect the tumultuous postwar era in Central America. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family, whose unfailing support and love were a constant source of encouragement. Thank you Will, Mom, and especially Dad. All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to you. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank everyone who has supported me throughout the completion of this project. I thank my director Dr. Constance Janiga-Perkins for her encouragement. Her patience and guidance consistently improved the quality of the dissertation and inspired me to not give up. I also thank the committee members for their time and valuable insights, including Dr. Steven Bunker, Dr. Ana Corbalán, Dr. Sarah Moody, and Dr. William Worden. I also thank the Department of Modern Languages and Classics for generous travel and research funding and for showing a strong commitment to the success of graduate students. I am grateful to a long list of dedicated teachers who have inspired me with their passion for the Spanish-speaking world. I would like to thank Richard Esler, my high school Spanish teacher, Charlotte Coleman, my first college Spanish professor, and Dr. Soraya Nogueira and Dr. Judith Rusciolelli from my master’s program. My fellow graduate students greatly enriched my time at Alabama. I would like to thank Beth Grassmann, Valencia Tamper, Laura Rojas-Arce, Larissa Clachar, Timothy Alford, Jessica Hubickey, Toloo Riazi, Laura Rubio, Betsy Brooks Poole, Shelly Hines-Brooks, and Katie Tolle for their friendship. Finally, I would like to thank the members of First United Methodist Church and the New Life class for their support and keen interest in contemporary Central American literature. iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION..............................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS A GENRE OF RETURN IN THE CONTEMPORARY CENTRAL AMERICAN NOVEL..................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: REVULSION AND RETURN IN EL ASCO BY HORACIO CASTELLANOS MOYA...........................................................................................................................................33 CHAPTER 2: RETURN AS JOURNEY AND DEMYSTIFICATION IN CRUZ DE OLVIDO BY CARLOS CORTÉS.................................................................................................................68 CHAPTER 3: “RETURN IS RENOVATION, NOT RESIGNATION”: STRUGGLE AND REAWAKENING IN EL RETORNO DE LOS MAYAS BY GASPAR PEDRO GONZÁLEZ..................................................................................................................................99 CHAPTER 4: “UNA MIRADA FEMENINA SOBRE LA HISTORIA”: EXILE AND RETURN IN CON PASÍON ABSOLUTA BY CAROL ZARDETTO.........................................132 CONCLUSION: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO RETURN?........................................................163 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................175 v INTRODUCTION TOWARDS A GENRE OF RETURN IN THE CONTEMPORARY CENTRAL AMERICAN NOVEL This dissertation examines exile in four contemporary Central American novels and focuses on the return of each protagonist after an extended absence. These works offer an in- depth investigation of the literature of a region in the throes of social upheaval at the end of the twentieth century. Return is a conflicting event that is manifested in a range of emotions including discouragement, personal discovery, and optimistic views of cultural awakening. The aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the genre represents a significant yet often underappreciated aspect of displacement in literature and criticism Exile and displacement are fundamental aspects of the human experience and include topics such as exodus, assimilation, marginalization, and cultural dissonance. Despite the array of approaches to the field, return fails to receive substantial attention as a literary and scholarly subject.1 In fact, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees designated 1992 as the start of a “decade of voluntary repatriation” in response to the return of displaced groups around the world (Sepulveda 83). Yet in studies of displacement, this theme is conspicuously absent. Explorations of exile tend to focus on three traditional aspects: the mental and social states of individuals prior to flight, the reasons for leaving, and the subsequent attempts to assimilate in foreign lands (Shain 8). Lost in these discussions is the role of return and its far-reaching implications. Exile is noted for probing the bounds of identity between origins and sites of 1 “It is not by chance that the exilic condition has turned into a key paradigm for the human condition especially under conditions of estrangement, alienation, and marginalization as well as displacement, relocation, and migration” (Sznajder and Roniger, “Political”12). 1 displacement: “It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted” (Said 173). In addition to provoking issues of distance between self and origins, displacement questions the basic concepts of home. When individuals flee their homelands, they also leave behind an elaborate assortment of memories that are transformed and challenged. Instead of idealizing home as a remembered physical place, an uncomfortable in-betweenness emerges among social, cultural, and national modes of belonging. Exile is understood as “a sense of being between places, rather than being rooted definitively in one singular place” (Di Stefano 28). In this sense, identity is continually constructed from the distance of displacement while balancing recollections of home with the desire to eventually return.2 But once return is converted from a distant dream to a reality, its outcomes are as varied as they are unpredictable. For this reason, this project proposes a genre of return based on recent Central American novels that is beneficial in understanding the process and its place in the wider field of exile studies. Exile is a wide-ranging subject and “can be analyzed from a sociological, psychological, economic, literary, artistic, and geographic point of view. It relates not only to expulsion from a country but also to reception by host countries, to a dynamics of longing for return, and eventually to the return itself” (Sznajder and Roniger, “Political” 25). The focus on separation from a physical country of origin and the possibility of return are key characteristics of exile in the novels of this dissertation.3 For Edward Said, exile is at its core “a discontinuous state of being” that stresses the anguish of separation as a continual rupture in terms of self, identity, and 2 John Di Stefano defines home as an active process unattached to tangible ideas of place or geography: “It is a space or structure of activity and beliefs around which we construct a narrative of belonging. More than a physical space, home might be understood as a familiarity and regularity of activities and structures of time” (38). 3 The critic Amy Kaminsky defines exile as an