Emotional overflow and ethical fiction in the Central American novels of guerrillas

Abstract

The following essay explores a series of Central American novels from the 1960s to the 1980s, especially Pobrecito poeta que era yo… by Roque Dalton. The analysis begins with the premise exposed by Brian Massumi which sustains that when bodies encounter, collide and rub with each other they unleash emotive and intellective currents that are prone to be captured by the semantic grids of ideologies. This assertion is close to that of Judith Butler about the selfrefective turn which constitutes the subject in its attachment to a normative power. The essay would attempt to show the mode in which these novels allow to recognize an emotional overfow in contact with social realities and models of revolutionary ethics by which they were captured and helped to conform the guerrillero as heroic figure.

Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 148, 2016: 61-80