Paraguayan/guarani literature - transversalities

Abstract

Going through compilation works of Paraguayan writers Augusto Roa Bastos and Rubén Bareiro Saguier, and from literary and nonliterary discourses, the ambiguity founded in the word guarani is analyzed; which indistinctly designates a language, a culture, and an ethnic group; and which, by metonymy, is a demonymnickname for Paraguayans. Relations between Paraguayan and Guarani literature are explored, from the perspective of the cited authors; both connoisseurs and disseminators of Guarani literature, as two of the few Paraguayans able to overcome a siege of cultural isolation thanks, in part, to the political exile; in the light of an hizpanicying Latin American critical tradition that, as well as invisibilizes Paraguayan literature, contributes to a mystification founded in its linguistic peculiarity, whether real or invented.