The Current and Future State of Afro-Colombian Prose Fiction

La escritura es portadora de modernidad pero no choca contra el mundo oral; antes bien, debe enriquecerlo. En ese sentido, aqui se ha reverenciado la palabra escrita, que le ha dado cierto prestigio a quien la domina.Alfredo Vanfn RomeroMany years ago, I was introduced to the literary works of Afro-Colombian fiction writers such as Amoldo Palacios, Carlos Arturo Truque, and Manuel Zapata Olivella. By Afro-Colombian, I am referring to authors who articulate a black experience within the Colombian context; their identification with the Afro-Colombian ethnic group informs both their literary themes and their aesthetics. My exploration of Afro-Colombian literature eventually aroused my curiosity as to whether there was an emerging generation of black fiction writers in Colombia. There are seasoned authors who continue to publish, such as Alfredo Vanin Romero (1950), whose latest novel is titled Los restos del Vellocino De Oro (2008), and Amoldo Palacios (1926) who, after years of living in France, has returned to Colombia and published his novel Buscando mi madredios.1 However, I have yet to find any younger or up-and-coming Afro-Colombian fiction writers.2Notwithstanding the achievements of earlier writers, it is still a worthwhile task to ask why the country with the second largest black population in Latin America has not produced more Afro-Colombian fiction writers over the last few decades. In effect, now is an especially important time to address this issue given that the understanding of ethnic-racial meanings in Colombia has undergone significant changes, in large part, thanks to constitutional reform initiated in the late 1980s.' It was during this time that various Afro-Colombian political and cultural organizations entered into direct dialogue with the nation-state while attempting to define an Afro-Colombian identity capable of representing the realities and needs of the country's black populations. These processes of negotiation eventually influenced the writing of the Constitution of 1991 and Law seventy of 1993 (Ley de Comunidades Negras), which, among other things, recognized Afro-Colombians as a distinct ethnic group.Although scholars have addressed the impact that constitutional reform and the country's embracing of multiculturalism have had on black communities, no one has considered how these developments relate to Afro-Colombian literary production. I will revisit the purported advancements achieved through constitutional reform alongside a consideration of both old and new barriers that continue to restrict entry into a literary profession. Of course, this inquiry raises the following questions: What are the social and cultural ramifications, if any, resulting from this break within the Afro-Colombian literary tradition? What is the place of literature in societies dominated by various media and a celebration of visual culture? What role does literature play in the social sphere?Mestizaje / (A Lack of) Racial ConsciousnessThe scarcity of Afro-Colombian prose fiction has usually been attributed to the fact that, in Colombia, only a very vague black identity exists based on ambiguous notions of "blackness," a common history and shared experiences of racial discrimination. In his book, Without Hatred or Fears (2000), Laurence Prescott outlines various factors that, even to this day, have often mitigated the potential for a type of black militant literature. Afro-Colombians, separated by topographical barriers and distinct experiences of racial oppression and integration, have at times identified with local culture, region, class, and political affiliation more so than with their ethnic group on a national scale. At the same time, there has been a tendency to elude race, downplay racial discrimination, and even assimilate to dominant culture, in part due to the influence of mestizaje, the hegemonic ideology historically used to define Colombia as a nation of one mixed race. …