«The Island of the Lonely Men» by José León Sánchez and the Autobiographical-testimonial Question

Abstract

From the authorial prologue and the incipit, the novel La isla de los hombres solos (1967) problematizes the function of testimony, since it raises the temporal complexity of the autobiographical writing; the novel makes possible its narrative pact due to the authenticity and the veracity of its discourse and analyzes the capacity of the authorship with the classic topics of the captatio benevolentiae and the excusatio propter infirmitatem. The request, which refers to the case of an internal auditor/reader in the manner of the picaresque, clarifies, then, the perspective of the testimony in which the amplification of pain and collective suffering allows not only justification but also exculpation. This paper will outline the limits of the autobiographical-testimonial issue in the seminal work of the laureate Costa Rican writer.