After Life: An Ethnographic Novel by Tobias Hecht (review)

Book Reviews poemarios en comparacion con novelas, Forster y Laraway cumplen con una gran labor a1enumerar, siquiera, poetas recientes y sus obras. Figuran en esta agrupacion poetas establecidos como Nancy Morejon, Antonio Cisneros, y Gioconda Belli,a1lado de otros menos conocidos,10smasjovenessiendo Luis Manuel Perez Boitel (Cuba, 1969),y Leonard0 Sanhueza y Damsi Figueroa (Chile, 1974 y 1976). El muy apropiado "Apunte final: la tecnologia y la poesia contemporanea" (317-318)abre nuevos horizontes de analisis a la vez que extiende las ramas del "arbol de imagenes" hacia la edad cibernetica. Arbol de imhgenes ofreceuna muy perspicaz y bien organizada introduccion critica a la practia poetica en Hispanoamerica. El volumen comprende, tambien, una guia bibliografica,exhaustivamente investigada, de las fuentes primarias y secundarias. Arbol de imagenes, con su articulacion concisa y sus muy bien elegidos versos de antologia, sera una referencia imprescindible para estudiantes tanto como especialistas de la poesia hispanoamericana. Bruce Dean Willis Department of Languages Universityof Tulsa AFTER LIFE: ANETHNOGRAPHIC NOVEL. By Tobias Hecht. Durham:Duke UP, 2006, p. 192, $18.95. Positioning itself somewhere between a formal ethnographic study and a traditional Latin American testirnonio, is Tobias Hecht's work After Life. One might say that the second half of the title 'An Ethnographic Novel' is an oxymoron; and, while that is correct, it is an accurate description of the work itself. This text could be viewed as an experiment of sorts, but overall it is a narrative that may be described as self-aware. Unlike many Latin American testimonios that have tended to fictionalise first and offer explanations later as to their real-life groundings, Hecht introduces the text to the reader with clear rationalizations as to what his work was based on (hisresearch onstreet childreninBrazil).He alsoidentifies the real subjectwho will be fictionalised in his work (BrunaVerissimo -who will transform into Beto, and then Aparecida), as well as introducing his own doubts on some of the facts in his work (hebelieves that Bruna has lied during some of his fieldwork).Hecht appears to align his creation alongside that of other testimonial novels found in Latin American literature and demonstrates a clear knowledge of much of the present theory and problems that this genre has had to confront, such as challenges to their truthfulness like the ones David Stoll posed to Rigoberta Mechu's testimony. However, Hecht has an effective strategy. I once asked an author why she wrote an autobiographical novel: why not simply write an autobiography? The answer was a revelation. She claimed not to have published one because she wanted freedom from questioning. She did not want her novel to be challenged by tmth finders (who, Hecht suggests in After Lfe, would be able The Latin Americanist, Fall 2007 to find inconsistencies in any life story). So she wrote a novel and called it her autobiography. There is protection in this approach. You appeal to the truth, you link your narrative to a verifiable reality, you explain that what you are about to read “could be as it is told” (8);but, at the same time, you shelter your work from criticism from deconstructionist experts. This technique is not new. Hecht himself points out that Miguel Barnet also incorporated fiction and ethnography while writing Biagrafia de un cimarro’n.Hecht has simply learned from past masters when constructing bridges between reality and fiction. However, much is gained from the fictionalisation of his novel as well. Hecht is able to shed his persona and create Zoe, an academic who is the only daughter of a Jewish holocaust survivor. Much of the narrative is devoted to this character:her battle against a debilitating bout of depression, and her coming to terms with a recent emergency hysterectomy. This protagonist’s fictional dilemmas become as much a part of the storyline as those based on the actual study. This character also allows for other subjects to be mentioned, such as the frustrated motherhood theme developed throughout the whole of the text, as well as being able to portray Zoe’s maternal feelings towards the young boy Beto. All of the women in the text suffer from this foiling in some way or another: Zoe, Zoe’s mother...