In the following reading of Manuel Zapata Olivella´s literary work, I illustrate the ways testimonial rhetorical elements make a remarkable presence in the literary evolution of this Colombian writer (1920-2004). To determinate what I call testimonial rhetorical elements, I explore the works on testimonio written by researchers such as John Beverley, Elzbieta Sklodowska and Hugo Achugar. By means of Hugo Achugar and Elzbieta Sklodowska´s studies, and the parallel these researchers make between Latin American testimonio and previous narratives, I study the influences some literary movements, such as the novel of the social realism, the autobiography, the modernist Chronicle and the American new journalism, have in Manuel Zapata Olivella´s works.
I present Zapata’s first works: Pasión vagabunda (1949), He visto la noche (1953), China 6, a. m and La calle 10 (1960) as the kind of texts that attempt to produce clear testimonial effects. I also illustrate how, in later publications, Detrás del rostro (1963) and El fusilamiento del diablo (1986), the author incorporates testimonio to prove, first, that the search of reality is a failed and impossible project. Second, that testimonial discourses are the foundations of his fictional work.
This dissertation contributes to both the study of testimonial discourses present in the evolution of Latin American literature, as well as the study of the narrative structure of Manuel Zapata Olivella´s literary work. Being a writer whose work has been mainly studied from the fields of Afro-Hispanic blackness, this study sheds light into the essence of Manuel Zapata Olivella´s literary richness, its internal structures, the social and literary value of his works, and its relationship to genre and race.