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The colonized man who writes for his people ought to use the past with the intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and as a basis for hope. But to ensure that hope ana to give it form, he must take pan in action and throw himself body and soul into the national struggle.
-Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
In his groundbreaking study, Black Writers in Latin America (1979), Richard L. Jackson, eminent scholar and pioneer in the development Afro-Hispanic literary criticism, states, "the study of Afro-Latin American literature and culture is experiencing its own kind of boom in the seventies" (ix). Borrowing from the categorization of Latin American Literature of the previous decade, Jackson suggests an awakening of interest among, principally, North American scholars in the literary production by writers of African ancestry in Latin America whose works delve into the "darker" revelations of cultural experiences in America Latina and beyond. In the preface of his work and as a testament to the emerging interest in Afro-Hispanic culture and civilization, Jackson notes the development of numerous conferences, colloquia, conventions, symposia, scholarly publications, literary journals, and courses at universities across the United States. And, centered in many of the conferences, publications and courses were the works of Afro-Colombian Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920-2004). For this and other reasons, Jackson in this work bestows on him the distinction of "the dean of Black Hispanic writers."
The literary legacy of Manuel Zapata Olivella is one that engages a wide breadth of themes ranging from human ecology, Colombian regionalism, violence, political corruption, urban and rural poverty, African religion, identity construction, literary blackness, political resistance, to African mythology and folklore. The aforementioned themes are evidenced in his first published novel, Tierra mojada (1949) and continue to resonate in works such as La Calle 10 (1960), He visto la noche (1953), Changó, elgranputas (1983), ¡Levantate mulato.'(1990), and Hemingway, el cazador de la muerte (1993). A distinguishing literary aesthetic characteristic of Zapata Olivella's work with regard to his thematic approach, is the fact that his published novels, short fiction, and critical essays engage these issues on three fronts: the local, the national, and the global. Nestled within the bound pages of his literary creations are local issues...