Abstract

CARRILLO JUAREZ, Carmen Dolores. From the Franciscan to the Dialogic Utopia in Cielos de la Tierra. En-clav. pen [online]. 2015, vol.9, n.17, pp.51-68. ISSN 2594-1100.

Cielos de la Tierra is a narrative that moves between historical reality and literary fiction, between historical novel and science fiction, and between historical utopia, dystopia and textual utopia. While it would be insufficient to include this novel among those considered the new historical novel, given that it does not satirize or distort any hero or event central to the official story, this article reviews the events surrounding the Real Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco in order to discover the reasons why Carmen Boullosa chooses to structure her novel around Don Hernando de Rivas, an indigenous translator educated by the Franciscans missionaries, who in their initial eagerness to shape a pristine church created this educational project. The historical references are examined from an historical perspective in order to trace the fictional recreations of the author. This opens the possibility of explaining the framework of the three stories of the novel as a metafictional strategy that makes it easier to conceive the meeting of three characters from different times in the narrative text translated and edited to create a dialogical utopia.

Keywords : New Historical Novel; Metafiction; Genre Crossover; Textual Utopia.