Caldwell, Wendy

About the author: Wendy Caldwell teaches Spanish and Latin American literature at Francis Marion University in South Carolina. She received her PhD from the University of Georgia, Athens. She has traveled to Chiapas, Mexico and participated in the 2002 Maya Worlds Summer Seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Narrative Voices and the Liberation Movement in the Mexican State of Chiapas

2004 0-7734-6376-3
This book focuses on a series of indigenista novels of Chiapas, Mexico published between 1957 and 1994 and examines these works of fiction as mirrors of important social, political, and economic realities plaguing contemporary Mexican society, in particular Chiapas. From this narrative sequence, a liberationist discourse emerges that reflects the ideas of Liberation Theology and its approach to the plight of the poor. The authors portray a set of obstacles that impede the liberation process and, in doing so, project movement toward the authentic liberation of the native inhabitants of their novels. Through the theoretical framework of liberation thought, this book shows how literature, specifically the novel, can transcend the boundaries of genre and transform itself into a participant in the debate on multiethnic identity in Mexico. With the 1994 uprising led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Chiapas has become a global symbol for marginalized voices that struggle to gain a legitimate space in Mexican society. The novels treated in the book outline the context which led to the “¡YA BASTA!” of the EZLN. The content is presented within an interdisciplinary context and, therefore, is attractive to a variety of fields.