The Literature of Testimony and Biographic Fiction in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Having participated in the translation of The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement edited version by Angus Mitchell, I developed a great
interest in the historical figure of Roger Casement. Both his acute evaluation of the euphemistically called rubber industry in the Amazon region, as well as his undaunted defense of native populations, on the brink of extinction, came very close to my personal feelings in the matter. From the standpoint of Casement’s Amazon journals as historical documents, I saw fit to analyze them according to Paul Ricoeur’s epistemology of historical sciences: 1) testimony and registration of testimonies; 2) questioning of registers; 3) writing of the historical representation of the past. As researcher of literature, I will complement the writing of the historical representation of the past with references to Mario Vargas Llosa’s biographic fiction The Dream of the Celt.

Keywords: Roger Casement; The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement; Mario Vargas Llosa; The Dream of the Celt; testimony.