Memory, Identity and Utopia in the Self-Representation Process of Afro-Central American Female Poets

Abstract

The presence of Afrodescendant women writers becomes visible in the last decades of the twentieth century. It is a discourse that arises from experiences of ethnic and gender discrimination. It is constituted as a cultural resistance movement that recovers emblematic characters, symbols, images, dreams and ideals that allow permanence in their countries. It has its origin, with creole writers, in Costa Rica with Eulalia Bernard (1935), Prudence Bellamy Richard (1935), Marcia Reid Chambers (1950), Shirley Campbell (1965),  Delia McDonald (1965) y Queen Nzinga Maxwell (1971). It will continue in Nicaragua, with June Beer (1935-1986), Erna Loraine Narcisso Walters (1942), Grace Kelly Bent, Annette Fenton (1973), Yolanda Rossman (1961), Deborah Robb Taylor (1965), Nydia Taylor (1953) and Andira Watson (1977); in Panama there is Eyra Harbar and Melanie Taylor. Regarding garifuna writers, in Honduras There is Xiomara Mercedes Cacho Caballero (1968), in Nicaragua, Isabel Estrada Colindres (1953) and in Guatemala, Nora Murillo (1964). This communication portrays a selection of authors, it is imposible to make an exhaustive description, but it does provide the meaning and continuity of an important scriptural tradition.