Affective memory in La novela de mi padre

familial constructions and deconstructions in cuban literature

Abstract

This article is an analysis of the book La novela de mi padre (2017), by Eliseo Alberto (1951-2011), a journalist, romanticist and one of the primary contemporary Latin-American narrators. We will demonstrate how this novel is formed around certain filial memories, which includes Alberto’s sister, the children’s author, Josefina de Diego (1951), and his uncles, the poets Cintio Vitier (1921-2009) and Fina Garcia Marruz (1923). We will underline the parallels between life and the author’s text, emphasizing the relationship with his dad, Eliseo Diego (1920-1994), one of the best teachers of Cuban poetry, a literary exponent and individual so significant that popularized the exercise of experiential narration of Alberto. Using this multifaceted text of analysis as a base, we will delineate the essential role of the sentimental memory of Alberto, elucidating the bond between his writing and his literary filial nucleus. The power of imagery in the text of the study outlines various textual exchanges that are part of the recognizable familial-affective context, which results in multiple expressive possibilities. The considerations regarding memory and the autobiographic gaze developed in the actual investigations will be fundamental, especially, in Bachelard (1993), Halbawchs (1990, 2004), Weimer (2008) and Arfuch’s thinking (2013, 2014, 2016). We observe that Eliseo Alberto’s affective constructions and deconstructions define his ideological bases and simultaneously reveal, one of the most important literary familial conjunctions in Cuba until today.

[Received on: July 29, 2021 - Accepted on: October 30, 2021]