Dislocating Sounds: The Unsettling Sonorities of the Amazon in William Ospina's El país de la canela

Abstract

Abstract: In this article, I examine the literary sounds of William Ospina's historical fiction, El país de la canela (2008), which retells the story of the 1541-1542 expedition led by Francisco de Orellana along the Amazon River. Exploring the relationship between aural imagery and space in the novel, I argue that sound contributes to dislocating the outsiders within the jungle, and building an alternative account of history in which senses act as an unstable counterpoint to the lettered archive. I maintain that Ospina re-elaborates the colonial past from a decentered perspective that challenges the primacy of the imperial gaze and rhetoric on the conquest, to criticize the enduring extractivist view of American nature in (neo)colonial discourse. To analyze the narrative's literary soundscape, I study the network of drums, howls, shrieks, rumbles, and silences that can be 'heard' by the mind's ear of its readers in relation to the Amazonian space. Following an interdisciplinary method, I draw on theoretical debates on historical fiction (Menton, Perkowska), eco-critical approaches on the novela de la selva (Marcone, Wylie), and contributions from the sound studies field (Ochoa Gautier, Estévez Trujillo, Kane). This all lends to my claim that the appeal to sounds in the narrative underpins a decolonial retelling of the past ruled by the senses, in which sonic disruptions make the conquistador appear out of place in the rainforest.