2 - Coded Messages: Costa Rican Protest Literature, 1970–1985

Summary

Owing to the power and prevalence of the traditional image of the tico, the Costa Rican internal ‘Other’ began to be discussed by national authors in the sociological revolution and literary ‘boom’ of the 1970s (Quesada Soto, 2008, 103). Following the birth of the Segunda República in 1948, Costa Rica found itself surrounded by civil war and protest movements. While Costa Rica's own sociological revolution of the 1970s was less pronounced than the Nicaraguan civil war or the US civil rights movements, for example – as protests and strikes in Costa Rica occurred but were uncommon – the decade sparked the awakening of a new kind of social consciousness. This in turn saw a surge in literature used as soft power in the 1970s as it was written to question national identity, and several of the country's most famous and prolific authors published their first works in this decade (Quesada Soto, 2008, 103). It is common among this generation of authors – who had grown up hearing the promises of the Second Republic governments – to underline their indignation when faced with social injustice with what Álfaro Quesada Soto describes as an ‘énfasis en el análisis de las nuevas transformaciones en la vida urbana y el campo que nacían con el nuevo proyecto modernizador, y con una posición ideológica más cercana a la socialdemocracia al que comunismo’ (2008, 104). The everyday existence of those living in both urban and rural areas in the country had changed since 1948, but many of the social guarantees which the revolutionary government had advertised were still yet to be seen.

As such, the works published in the 1970s by the country's most distinguished authors of this era contain several references to the social development of the nation, especially the notion that what they saw and documented was at odds with the patriotic ideals of social reform and justice. Chiefly, they hold at their core the narrative of marginality which challenges the social norms enshrouding Costa Rica.