Writing the Journey: June 1999

"Romancing Bolivia's Poor"

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Robert E. Garlitz
Plymouth State College
robertg@mail.plymouth.edu

In this paper three books which deal with Bolivia over the past thirty years are examined for the ways postcolonial themes can be seen at work within the writers' approach to the poor of the country. The critical framework developed by Helene Cixous I find most helpful for examining this question in the three books I study. Cixous says writing goes to three schools---of the Dead, of Dreams and of Roots. These motives can be studied in the three books under consideration: Henri Nouwen's: Gracias A Latin American Journal ; Eric Lawlor's In Bolivia, and Mark Jacobs's Stone Cowboy. Bolivia is viewed by these three travelers through it in ways that show how the travelers' struggle with their stance as privileged outsiders and yet cannot resist the romancing of the stark poverty they encounter in the country. This "romancing" follows the patterns explored by Cixous---mystery, death, and inferno. Nouwen's vantage is established religion, Lawlor sees the country as a political journalist, and Jacobs explores through the eyes of a burned-out gringo magus. My conclusions: I expect to feature an emphasis on these three writers as writers first and travel writers second. That is to say, the motifs discussed by Cixous will hold true for these writers because Bolivia as a place of extremity lends itself to exploration of the extremes writers from the "Romantic" West continue to have as permanent fixtures of their ideas of themselves and of places they visit. Cixous's schools of writing review the outlook of all western travelers to Bolivia, which is revealed as still being very much under the yoke of an assortment of imperial burdens.

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Robert E. Garlitz
Associate Professor of English
Plymouth State College, MSC
#40, Plymouth, NH 03264
Email: robertg@mail.plymouth.edu
Telephone: 603-536-2308

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