Between ‘truth’ and fiction: another view on the novel El arpa y la sombra, by Alejo Carpentier

Abstract

In a world where there is no steady knowledge, which “owns” any and all the truth, would there be a history that could account for the real world? Which is the current role of historians and novelists? Interdisciplinary studies associated with literature and history have been questioning for a long time what the boundaries imposed – or not – by such subjects are. In Americas, many novelists have “mixed” fiction (invention) and history (truth), making the reader wonder about what he/she is reading: is it a real fact or only the result of the writer’s imagination. This study will analyze El arpa y la sombra, by the Cuban writer Alejo Carpienter. This author reported expectations and confessions of a man who dared to cross the world and arrived in a new continent – the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus. The author relies on historical facts to re(tell) the proposal of beatification of this man and to give his own opinion on the fact. Through questioning of established truths, the author (re)creates a new non-documented history of the ‘Discoverer’ of the Americas.