I am struck, in this list of responses, by those who continue ingenuously to propagate a concept of Rigoberta's book as "true" according to a "non-Western" "ontology" or "epistemology." One must perform Oedipian feats of intellectual self-mutilation in order to continue to believe that Rigoberta is not a well-educated woman fluent in Western language and culture and that her book is not a Western text. Certainly there is much of value in the work, but this does not require the erection of a critical scaffolding of dishonesties and evasions to rival and compound any exaggeration in the original book. No amount of jargon or appeal to phantom "traditions of testimony" can eradicate the fact that Rigoberta is an intelligent, conscious, modern woman, and that her book falls directly and demonstrably within a Western literary tradition, with precedents in North American ethnography, in the testimonial novel pioneered by Miguel Barnet, and in 'indigenist' fiction of Hispanic America. I continue to be amazed, not by how some can still see value in a text whose truth-value is (as it has always been) tainted, but by how some think their ideological correctness justifies any lack of reason.
JOIN THE DEBATE Be sure to include your name and affiliation. Legitimate requests for anonymity will be honored. Submissions may be condensed or edited for clarity.
| ||||||||
previous response
Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education