Ann González

Costa Rican novelist Fabian Dobles (1918-1997) is arguably one of the most important formative writers within the context of Costa Rican and Central American literary history. Yet until now there has been no book-length analysis in either English or Spanish of his narrative contributions. Isolated studies generally place him within the realist and regionalist tendencies of the period and emphasize his mimetic representation of the world. This book, however, reevaluates Dobles' novels and short stories from the perspective of subaltern and postcolonial studies and offers the first theoretically consistent, comprehensive analysis of his narrative corpus.

Sí Pero No

In her analysis of some of the most interesting and important children’s literature from Central America and the Caribbean, Ann González uses postcolonial narrative theory to expose and decode what marginalized peoples say when they tell stories to their children—and how the interpretations children give these stories today differ from the ways they have read them in the past. González reads against the grain, deconstructing and critiquing dominant discourses to reveal consistent narrative patterns throughout the region that have helped children maneuver in a world dominated by powerful figures—from parents to agents of social control, political repression, and global takeover. Many of these stories are in some way lessons in resistance and survival in a world where “the toughest kid on the block,” often an outsider, demands that a group of children “play or pay,” on his terms. González demonstrates that where traditional strategies have proposed the model of the “trickster” or the “paradoxically astute fool,” to mock the pretensions of the would-be oppressor, new trends indicate that the region’s children—and those who write for them—show increasing interest in playing the game on their own terms, getting to know the Other, embracing difference, and redefining their identity and role within the new global culture. Resistance and Survival emphasizes the hope underlying this contemporary children’s literature for a world in which all voices can be heard and valued—the hope of an authentic happy ending.

Children’s Narrative from Central America and the Caribbean

Resistance and Survival

In this volume González explores how the effects of a traumatic colonial experience are (re)presented to Latin American children today, almost two centuries after the dismantling of colonialism proper. Central to this study is the argument that the historical constraints of colonialism, neocolonialism, and postcolonialism have generated certain repeating themes and literary strategies in children’s literature throughout the Spanish-speaking Americas. From the outset of Spanish domination, fundamental tensions emerged between the colonizers and native groups that still exist to this day. Rather than a felicitous mixing of these two opposing groups, the mestizo is caught between contrasting worldviews, contending explanations of reality, and different values, beliefs, and epistemologies (that is, different ways of seeing and knowing). Postcolonial subjects experience these contending cultural beliefs and practices as a double bind, a no-win situation, in which they feel pressured by mutually exclusive expectations and imperatives. Latin American mestizos, therefore, are inevitably conflicted. Despite the vastness of the geography in question and the innumerable variations in regional histories, oral traditions, and natural settings, these contradictory demands create a pervasive dynamic that penetrates the very fabric of society, showing up intentionally or not in the stories passed from generation to generation as well as in new stories written or adapted for Spanish-speaking children. The goal of this study, therefore, is to examine a variety of children’s texts from the region to determine how national and hemispheric perceptions of reality, identity, and values are passed to the next generation. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of Latin American literary and cultural studies, children’s literature, postcolonial studies, and comparative literature.

Ann González

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