Decolonial reinterpretations of indigenous female resistance in Latin American history: literary representations of Anacaona

The historical novel genre, through modalities that present a critical/decolonial perspective (FLECK, 2017), enables literary reinterpretations of characters hidden or subjugated by the hegemonic European historiography about the colonization of America (A & iacute;nsa, 1991; Esteves, 2010). One of the figures largely excluded from official records is Anacaona (Vallejo, 2015), a Ta & iacute;no cacica who lived in Guanahan & iacute;, an island territory that currently comprises the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Although she does not appear significantly in the annals of history or in the Latin American collective imagination, Anacaona represents a symbol of female resistance against the Spanish colonization of the 15th and 16th centuries, as she led her people until being hanged and having her community decimated by Spanish colonizers. In this article, we present our comparative analysis of two literary works in which Anacaona is fictionally represented: Anacaona, Golden Flower (2015), by Edwidge Danticat, and Anacaona: la & uacute;ltima princesa del Caribe (2017), by Jordi D & iacute;ez Rojas. As a result of bibliographic and documentary research, our objective in this text is to demonstrate how the image of this native leader is reinterpreted in different diegeses, comparatively analyzed with traditional historiographic documents such as Brev & iacute;sima relaci & oacute;n de la destrucci & oacute;n de las Indias ([1552] 2011), by friar Bartolomeu de Las Casas, and De Orbo Novo ([1530] 1912), by chronicler Pietro Martire d'Anghiera. Thus, we point to the potential for reinterpretation of the past in contemporary historical novels of mediation (Fleck, 2017), as decolonial literary projects.