Introduction: Covering the Mouth of Silence

Abstract

This study follows the trajectory of Central America in the area’s historical fiction of the twentieth century as it has embarked on the painful and complicated project of modernity. In assessing the paths taken toward this end, creative fiction has been a key forum for engaging in critical self-evaluation along the way. The cultural realm in general has often provided a platform from which to supplement and contest historical and political discourses. Given the drawn-out violence and extreme sociopolitical conditions of the region, literature in particular has frequently been in dialogue with historical perspectives replete with charged silences and evasive euphemisms. By paying close attention to the aesthetics of language and the techniques of discourse formation, the study of Central American literature—with a distinct focus on historical fiction—insistently challenges the reader to contend with the implications of the interplay between texts and contexts, as they become inextricably intertwined in the literature of the region.