Testimonio: The Witness, the Truth, and the Inaudible

The term testimonio is used in Latin American Cultural and Literary Studies to refer to a narration marked by the urgency to make public a situation of oppression or injustice and/or of resistance against that same condition (and therefore a narrative that accounts for the construction of collective subjects and emphasizes agency). It is also used to refer to a narration that reveals the urgency to bear witness to an event or series of events perpetrated with the aim of eliminating a community or a group (a narrative linked to documenting human rights violations and genocide). The narration, mediated or not through an editor, entails the affirmation of a speaking subject who, in turn, invokes the existence of a community or group to which she/he claims to belong. Testimonio is generally associated with the term “subalternity,” and, thus, is understood as an attempt to undo the erasure, within official narratives, of the existence of a social group and its culture, as well as of the actions implemented by that group in order to struggle against oppression. The first erasure concerns the representation of subaltern groups as invisible and disposable. The second one blurs or dismisses the violence of oppression and exploitation as the cause of different forms of struggle and inscribes subalternity as connected to criminality in the official narratives of authoritarian states, to further justify the illegal repression of apparatuses of enforced disappearance and massacre. Even though testimonial practices have existed since the sixteenth century in Latin America, the emergence of the term testimonio, and the theoretical debates that surround it, should take into account the sociopolitical and cultural transformations that accompany the revolutionary processes in the 1960s and the decades that followed, and the atrocities and human rights violations perpetrated by dictatorships.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Buy Now

eBook EUR 26.74 Price includes VAT (France)

Softcover Book EUR 34.80 Price includes VAT (France)

Hardcover Book EUR 126.59 Price includes VAT (France)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Preview

Similar content being viewed by others

Storytelling and Truth-Telling: Testimonial Narratives in The Road to Guantánamo and Guantánamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’

A Deviant Device: Diary Dissembling in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

Testimonies in Historiography and Oral History

Works Cited and Further Reading

• Achugar, Hugo. 1992. “Historias paralelas/Historias Ejemplares: La historia y la voz del otro.” Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 36: 49–71. Google Scholar
• Achugar, Hugo, and John Beverley, eds. 1992. La voz del otro: testimonio, subalternidad y verdad narrativa. Special Issue of Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana 36. Google Scholar
• Agamben, Giorgio. 2000. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. New York: Zone Books. Google Scholar
• Arce, Luz. 2004. The Inferno: A Story of Terror and Survival in Chile. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Google Scholar
• Arias, Arturo, ed. 2001a. The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• —. 2001b. “Authoring Ethnicized Subjects: Rigoberta Menchú and the Performative Production of the Subaltern Self.” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 116.1: 75–88. Google Scholar
• —. 2002. “After the Rigoberta Menchú Controversy: Lessons Learned about the Nature of Subalternity and the Specifics of the Indigenous Subject.” MLN 117.2: 481–505. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Barnet, Miguel. 1966. Biografía de un cimarrón. La Habana: Academcia de ciencias de Cuba. Google Scholar
• —. 1969. “La novela testimonio: socio-literatura.” Union 4: 99–122. Google Scholar
• Beverley, John. 1987. “Anatomía del testimonio.” In Del Lazarillo al sandinismo: estudios sobre la function ideological de la literature española e hispanoamericana. Minneapolis: Prisma Institute. Google Scholar
• —. 1989. “The Margin at the Center: On Testimonio.” Modern Fiction Studies 35.1: 1–21. Google Scholar
• —. 1993. Against Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• —. 1996. “The Real Thing.” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Georg M. Gugelberger, 266–286. Durham: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
• —. 1999. Subalternity and Representation: Arguments in Cultural Theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. BookGoogle Scholar
• —. 2004. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• Beverley, John, and Marc Zimmerman. 1990. Literature and Politics in the Central American Revolutions. Austin: University of Texas Press. Google Scholar
• Bonasso, Miguel. 1984. Recuerdo de la muerte. Mexico: Ediciones Era. Google Scholar
• Butazzoni, Fernando. 1986. El tigre y la nieve. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental. Google Scholar
• Cabezas, Omar. 1982. La montaña es algo más que una inmensa estepa verde. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores. Google Scholar
• Comisión nacional de verdad y reconciliación. 1991. Informe Rettig. Chile. http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/ddhh_rettig.html.
• Comisión nacional sobre la desaparición de personas. 1984. Nunca más. Argentina. http://www.derechoshumanos.net/lesahumanidad/informes/argentina/informe-de-la-CONADEP-Nunca-mas.htm.
• Craft, Linda J. 1997. Novels of Testimony and Resistance from Central America, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Google Scholar
• Fernández Huidobro, Eleuterio, and Mauricio Rosencof. 1987–88. Memorias del calabozo, I and II. Montevideo: TAE. Google Scholar
• Forcinito, Ana. 2012. Los umbrales del testimonio: entre las narraciones de los sobrevivientes y las señas de la posdictadura. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Google Scholar
• Forster, Ricardo. 2003. Crítica y sospecha: los claroscuros de la cultura moderna. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Google Scholar
• —. 2008. “De batallas y olvidos: el retorno de los setenta.” In El laberinto de las voces argentinas: ensayos políticos, 147–172. Buenos Aires: Colihue. Google Scholar
• Gelman, Juan, and Mara La Madrid, eds. 1997. Ni el flaco perdón de Dios: hijos de desaparecidos. Buenos Aires: Planeta. Google Scholar
• González Bermejo, Ernesto. 1985. Las manos en el fuego. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental. Google Scholar
• Gonzalez Echevarria, Roberto. 1985. The Voice of the Masters: Writing and Autobiography in Modern Latin American Literature. Austin: University of Texas Press. Google Scholar
• Gugelberger, Georg. 1996. The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
• Gugelberger, Georg, and Michael Kearney, eds. 1991. “Voices for the Voiceless: Testimonial Literature in Latin America.” In Latin American Perspectives 70/71. 18.3 and 18.4. Google Scholar
• Guha, Ranajit. 1982. “Preface.” In Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society 1: vii–x. Google Scholar
• Jara, René. 1986. “Prólogo.” In Testimonio y literatura, edited by René Jara and Hernán Vidal. Minneapolis: Institute for the Study of Ideologies and Literature. Google Scholar
• Jara, René, and Hernán Vidal, eds. 1986. Testimonio y literatura. Minneapolis: Institute for the Study of Ideologies and Literature. Google Scholar
• Larsen, Neil. 1995. Reading North by South: On Latin American Literature, Culture and Politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• Latin American Subaltern Studies Group. 1993. “Founding Statement.” boundary 2.20.3: 110–121. Google Scholar
• Marín, Linda. 1991. “Speaking Out Together: Testimonials of Latin American Women.” Latin American Perspectives 18:3: 51–68. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Menchú, Rigoberta. 1983. Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia, edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. La Habana: Casa de las Américas. Google Scholar
• Moreiras, Alberto. 1996. “The Aura of Testimonio.” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Georg M. Gugelberger, 193–224. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
• Nance, Kimberly A. 2006. Can Literature Promote Justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Google Scholar
• Partnoy, Alicia. 1986. The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina. Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1986. Google Scholar
• —. 2006 “Cuando vienen matando: On Prepositional Shifts and the Struggle of Testimonial Subjects for Agency.” PMLA 121.5: 1665–1669. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Quijada Cerda, Aníbal. 1977. Cerdo de púas. La Habana: Casa de las Américas. Google Scholar
• Randall, Margaret. 1992. Gathering Rage. New York: Monthly Review Press. Google Scholar
• —. 1994. Sandino’s Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Google Scholar
• Rodríguez, Ileana. 1995. Women, Guerrillas and Love. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• Saporta Sternbach, Nancy. 1991. “Re-membering the Dead: Latin American Women’s Testimonial Discourse.” Latin American Perspectives 18.3: 91–102. Google Scholar
• Sarlo, Beatriz. 2005. Tiempo pasado. Cultura de la memoria y giro subjetivo. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. Google Scholar
• Sklodowska, Elzbieta. 1992. Testimonio hispanoamericano: historia, teoría, poética. New York: Peter Lang. Google Scholar
• —. 1996. “Spanish American Testimonial Novel: Some Afterthoughts.” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Georg M. Gugelberger, 84–100. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
• —. 2001. “The Poetics of Remembering, the Politics of Forgetting: Rereading I, Rigoberta Menchú.” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias, 251–269. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• Sommer, Doris. 1988. “Not Just a Personal Story: Women’s Testiomonios and the Plural Self.” In Life/Lines: Theorizing Women’s Autobiography, edited by Bella Brodzki and Celeste Schenck, 107–130. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
• —. 1996. “No Secrets.” In The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, edited by Georg M. Gugelberger, 130–157. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar
• —. 2001. “Las Casas’s Lies and Other Language Games.” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias, 237–250. Minneapolis,: University of Minnesota Press. Google Scholar
• Stoll, David. 1999. Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. Google Scholar
• Strejilevich, Nora. 2006. El arte de no olvidar: Literatura testimonial en Chile, Argentina y Uruguay entre los 80 y los 90. Buenos Aires: Catálogos. Google Scholar
• Timerman. 1981. Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number. New York: Knopf. Google Scholar
• Valdés, Hernán. 1974. Tejas verdes: Diario de un campo de concentración en Chile. Esplugues de Llobregat: Editorial Ariel. Google Scholar
• Vallina, Cecilia, and Hugo Vezzetti. 2008. Crítica del testimonio: ensayos sobre las relaciones memoria y relato. Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo. Google Scholar
• Vezzetti, Hugo. 2002. Pasado y Presente: Guerra, dictadura y sociedad en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. Google Scholar
• —. 2008. “El testimonio en la formación de la memoria social.” In Crítica del testimonio, edited by Cecilia Vallina, 23–43. Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo. Google Scholar
• Viezzer, Moema, ed. 1978. Si me permiten hablar: testimonio de Domitila, una mujer de las minas de Bolivia. Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores. Google Scholar
• Walsh, Rodolfo. 1994. Operación masacre [1956]. Buenos Aires: Planeta. Google Scholar
• Yúdice, George. 1988. “Marginality and the Ethics of Survival.” In Universal Abandon?: The Politics of Postmodernism, edited by Andrew Ross, 214–236. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 214–36. Google Scholar
• —. 1991. “Testimonio and Postmodernism.” Latin American Perspectives 18.3: 15–31. ArticleGoogle Scholar
• —. 1993. “Postmodernism and the Periphery.” South Atlantic Quarterly 92.3: 543–556. Google Scholar

1. Ana Forcinito