Afro-Uruguayan Literature Post-Colonial Perspectives

This study is about representation and resistance in Afro-Uruguayan culture. It explores the manner in which Afro-Uruguayans defined, and continue to affirm, their ""place"" in a country in which societal and self perceptions were/are constantly shifting. This is a continuing process to which the written records hold the key. It has been common knowledge among literary historians that Afro-Uruguayans published a number of periodicals beginning as early as 1872. It is only now, however, with recent discoveries in the National Library in Montevideo that the extent of this production has become evident. It is primarily through these periodicals that much of the cultural legacy of Afro-Uruguayans can be reconstructed. Using post-colonialism as its theoretical framework, this study analyzes place and displacement, the drum culture, the role of periodicals, and poetry, as well as the dramatic tradition. This approach allows the reader to understand better the cultural dynamics of an important, but almost forgotten, diasporan population. Marvin A. Lewis is a Professor of Spanish and Director of the Afro-Romance Institute for Languages and Literatures of the African Diaspora of the University of Missouri-Columbia.