TO CREATE AND TO GROW UP AMID FOUNDATIONAL VIOLENCE:

CREOLIZATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Abstract

This article comparatively examines the question of the creole and of creolization in Latin America and the Caribbean, considering the historical and semantic diversity these terms have acquired in Hispanic, Francophone, and Anglophone contexts. It argues that the creole cannot be reduced either to an ethnic category or to a linguistic typology, but rather designates historical processes shaped by conquest, enslavement, conflictive mestizaje, struggles for legitimacy, and reappropriations of language. Through a dialogue with authors such as Édouard Glissant, Kamau Brathwaite, Patrick Chamoiseau, Frankétienne, Derek Walcott, and Alejo Carpentier, the study proposes to bring into relation creating and raising oneself: the historical conditions in which subjectivities are formed shape the possibilities of literary invention. Literature thus emerges as a privileged space where foundational violence is transformed into language, memory, relation, and aesthetic power.