Signs between past and present: Representation in Recent Historical Novels

Abstract

One of the characteristics recent Chilean historical novels is the mastering of the techniques of representation which give shape to the images by means of which we have access to the past. Such images are provided most often by traditional historiographic discourse and are addressed and questioned by the images produced by these novels in a dialogue which can be studied at least at three different levels: the way the leading roles are cast, the historical period represented, and the disarticulation of the historiographic narratives that serve as referents. This paper analyzes this dialogue of images in four novels —El sueño de la historia by Jorge Edwards, La ley del gallinero by Jorge Guzmán, La emperrada by Marta Blanco, and Cosa Mentale by Antonio Gil— set in u period in Chilean history particularly rich in the production of images sen'ing the project of national identity: the transition from the Colonial to the Republican age.