Literatura paraguaya, transcultu ración y polémica: Las formas de una "literatura ausente"

Abstract

The starting point of this article is an episode in the Paraguayan post-dictatorship intellectual field: the polemic provoked by Augusto Roa Bastos's statement about the absence of Paraguayan Literature. The article, however, will not explore the controversy underlying the statement, but rather the complex theoretical ideas that sustain it. The articulation of these ideas reveals issues related to diglossia and the colonialist social structure that survives in Paraguay. Bilingualism is experienced through a strong social and linguistic stratification. As a result, the relationship between orality and literacy is perceived as an inviolable opposition.