Tradiciones críticas encontradas en torno a la literatura testimonial del Holocausto y a la literatura del testimonio

Abstract

This essay examines the critical reactions to the scandals associated with the testimonies of Rigoberta Menchú, Binjamin Wilkomirski and Enric Marco in order to undermine the different comprehension and reception of Holocaust testimonial literature and Latin American ‘li- teratura del testimonio’. The critical responses to Rigoberta Menchú’s autobiographical dis- honesties as representative of the suffering of Guatemala’s indigenous people and to Binjamin Wilkomirski’s and Enric Marco’s false testimonies as Holocaust survivors show that the com- prehension of the testimonial genre depends in great part of the understanding of the limits between fictional and non-fictional genres, understanding which is strongly determinated by the different national memory cultures. The aim of this article is to critically challenge the role played by these different cultural memories in the reception of testimonial literature.