Invención de la memoria y ficción en la narrativa local del carbón, producida a mediados del siglo XX

• Main Author: Juan Bahamonde Cantín
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad de Chile 2017-11-01
• Series: Revista Chilena de Literatura
• Online Access: https://revistaliteratura.uchile.cl/index.php/RCL/article/view/47622

This article deals with the literary narrative of the coal valley located in the Bío Bío Region (after Baldomero Lillo), considering two novels: Hijo de las piedras (1963) by Juan Sánchez Guerrero and Una huelga en el carbón ( 1965) by Guillermo Pedreros and four short stories: “Ratonera” (1962-63) by José Chesta, “El ratón de cada uno” (1992) by Alfonso Alcalde , “Trasto viejo” ( 1991) by Víctor Hugo Gómez and “Tren a Río Pedregoso” ( 2001) by Miguel Ramírez. These works, a product of the invention from memory and fiction, can be classified within the creative group known as local authors: miners, union leaders, amateur writers well-known in the intellectual world. The novels can be classified within the genre "memories" in Chile, proposed by the scholar Leonidas Morales (2001 and 2003); on the other hand, the short stories are widely classified as literary fictionality. This article analyses, first, topic from "social realism" or social criticism associated with events which took place in the middle of the twentieth century, and also which predominate in the four chosen short stories and secondly, social, labor and union topics are examined, which are evident in both novels, linked to the “social issue” (beginning of the twentieth century).