Postcolonial Discourse in Latin American Theatre

Abstract

American history. Since independence from Spanish rule, divergent prospects for the future of the newly created nations kindled bitter battles in an ongoing war. In this process, irreconcilable views converged towards two distinct poles. One foresaw a Latin American born of the internalization of foreign models: Europe and the United States. The other, more willing to define within the specificity of their own processes, defended the dignity of its cultures, of its own uncharted destiny. As a consequence of this bipolarity, exile and death have been tightly woven into the fabric of Latin American history. New nations were born free of Spanish rule in the early nineteenth century only for many to find that once again, exile from the newly acquired homeland was the only alternative to execution. The birth of national literatures, in many cases, found their more eloquent artists writing abroad, already unable to live in the land they were struggling to form. Under these circumstances, nation and literature were born together, and it is not surprising that literature ascribed to the social project of inventing a collective imaginary. It is at this moment of prospective being that the conceptual image of the future underwent a radical split. Two contradictory visions took form regarding a Latin American destiny. These contradictory visions have become deeply ingrained in a collective imaginary that still marks the development of the continent. I am referring to the divergent social projects which are at the core of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's and Jos6 Marti's writings. Sarmiento ascribed to the notion of progress through the implementation of European and United States models. He defended this view both in works such as Civilizaci6n y Barbarie (1845) and in the office of his presidency in Argentina (1868-