The Authorship of Women as a Decolonial Aesthetic Project in Colombo de Terrarrubra (1994), by Mary Cruz

Abstract

As women writers gradually and arduously claimed space within literary expression, they found in the hybrid form of the historical novel an opportunity to recover figures and events ignored by traditional historical records (Cunha, 2004). More recently, in the context of women's writings on the "discovery," conquest, and colonization of the Americas, various works seek to portray perspectives beyond those celebrated by historiography. This is the case of the novel Colombo de Terrarrubra (1994) by Cuban writer Mary Cruz, in which we analyze the textual images constructed around Christopher Columbus and the direct consequences of his actions. The diegesis engages in a revision of the events that marked the late 15th century, employing the enunciating voice of Antón de Alaminos, a little-known Spanish sailor who, throughout the narrative, reveals his longings, fears, and expectations, exposing Columbus's human essence and numerous weaknesses. To explore the fictional discourse of women authors within the framework of the "poetics of the 'discovery' of the Americas," we draw on the theoretical contributions of Cunha (2004), Guerra (2007), Zolin (2009), Fleck (2021), among others. Thus, we demonstrate how the historical novel written by women, in its critical mediating strand (Fleck, 2017), can present decolonial aesthetic projects (Mignolo, 2000, 2017; Lugones, 2008, 2014) that, through literary writing, highlight perspectives and characters previously marginalized. This process ultimately destabilizes discursive and ideological fields and, consequently, the structures of coloniality within Latin American nations.