HISTORY AND LOGOS EPITAPHIOS IN MARIO BENCASTRO

Abstract

The essay reviews the recent novel La mansión del olvido (The Mansion of Oblivion, 2015) by the Salvadoran author Mario Bencastro. It describes the narrator’s journey to his homeland as a return to origins. The arrival involves a search of roots through a descenso ad inferos, by which the hero encounters his dead ancestors. Particularly, he rediscovers his deceased father and reconstructs history to amend past actions in a quest of utopia. The political projects of an ideal future depend on the narrator’s place of recollection where past, present and future happen. Thanks to this retrieval, the narrator invents a new personal and national welfare.