Ecuadorian Blackness and the Poetics of Resistance and Solidarity in Adalberto Ortiz’s novel Juyungo

Abstract

This study analyses Adalberto Ortiz’s novel Juyungo (1943) and proposes that, in Juyungo, Ortiz succeeds in articulating an Ecuadorian Blackness by recuperating the legacy of resistance and solidarity of the multi-ethnic and multiracial community of Esmeraldas. The novel’s protagonist, Ascensión Lastre, also known as “Juyungo”, represents both the ancestral ties that have characterised the common experiences of Afro-descendants and indigenous communities in the region as well as the complex position both communities have occupied as part of the cultural, political, and economic project of the Ecuadorian nation.