Trauma, Myth and Imagination in Two Novels by Manlio Argueta

Abstract

This article focuses on two novels by the Salvadoran writer Manlio Argueta, both of which were published and are set during the country's recent civil war (1980–1992): Un dia en la vida (1980) and Cuzcatlan, donde bate la mar del sur (1986). In both texts, Argueta presents female protagonists from rural El Salvador who convey experiences of persecution and violent repression from the authorities in a pseudo-testimonial style. Drawing from Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub's theories regarding the process and function of testimony and Gayatari Chakravorty Spivak's concept of strategic essentialism, I discuss how Argueta evokes indigenous myth as a means of illustrating the manner in which imagination and metaphor converge in the articulation of traumatic experiences that shatter ordinary frames of reference.Este articulo se centra en dos novelas del escritor salvadoreno Manlio Argueta, ambas publicadas y ambientadas durante la reciente guerra civil del pais (1980– 1992): Un dia en la vida (1980) and Cuzcatlan,...