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The Blurred Line: Narrative and Truth in Three Colombian Crónicas
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- Author / Creator
- Rempel, Leanne M
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The crónica has been an important literary and cultural component in Latin America for years. Published in newspapers or magazines, these short works details true events while employing literary elements usually reserved for fiction. Today, many scholars still debate the elements of the genre as it sits in an uncomfortable grey area between literature and journalism. In recent years, many crónicas have taken up themes around drug wars and narcoculture, making this grey area even more vexed, as the authors deal with personal and national tragedies. Presenting controversial and marginalized themes from a personal perspective, the crónica establishes a raw connection between the writer and the audience. This thesis strives to determine how specific narrative elements construct intimacy of the story, specifically in crónicas of violence in Colombia. A secondary goal is to determine how intimacy strives to affect the perception of truthfulness. Does a more intimate story seem closer to the truth, or does the subjectivity limit this possibility? While this thesis cannot propel the genre into only one realm of either literature or journalism, by analyzing narrative elements in the well known crónicas “El pueblo que sobrevivió a una masacre amenizada con gaitas” by Alberto Salcedo Ramos, “Relato de un secuestrado” by Álvaro Sierra and Noticia de un secuestro by Gabriel García Márquez, this thesis helps us understand how the perception of truthfulness is constructed in a series of texts about a very real problem.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2017
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Arts
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.