Politics, Rhetoric and the Future of Testimonio. A Review of Kimberly Nance's "Can Literature Promote Justice?: Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio"

Abstract

Kimberly Nance’s Can Literature Promote Justice? examines the cultural phenomenon of testimonio in the context of its academic reception from the 1970’s through the present. Her book seeks to revitalize critical debate on the genre—which many in the field perceive as having run its course—by offering an alternative to prevailing interpretive tendencies. In Nance’s view, the mourning of solidarity perpetuates an interpretive fantasy—albeit nostalgically or melancholically rather than affirmatively—and thereby blocks critical awareness of the truly emancipatory potential of the genre.