História e ficção no romance O homem que amava os cachorros

Abstract

This work aims to understand the articulation between history and fiction in the novel "The Man Who Loved Dogs" by Leonardo Padura (2015), juxtaposing it with Leon Trotsky's autobiography "My Life" (1969) and his "Diary of Exile" (1980b), written by a historical figure who is also the main character of the narrative presented as the literary corpus of this research. Furthermore, the work utilizes Ricoeur's narrative theory (2010), as presented in "Time and Narrative – Narrated Time", Bakhtin's "The Theory of the Novel" (2018), Lukács' "Historical Novel" (2011), and Dosse's "The Biographical Challenge" (2015) in dialogue with critical reception and the theoretical-philosophical foundation of the relationship between history and fiction in the literary tradition. The research presented, on the aforementioned book, is justified as important because it is a return to both the historical novel genre and the theme of revolution simultaneously. The research is essentially bibliographic, aiming to demonstrate that the work belongs to a unique genre of literature and can be read as a historical, a political or a biographical novel, as a specific literary instrument, as a tool for social reflection and a reassessment of historically established values. In conclusion, the research suggests an interpretation of the work as a literary production about the current time, viewed from Cuba, from a still revolutionary perspective, but without the dogmas or illusions that marked the narrated time in the trajectory of the historical characters in the book. It presupposes that material reality determines the forms and validation of literary texts, especially historical and political novels, and that this is the method to understand the success and importance of "The Man Who Loved Dogs" as a stylized version of a fragment of history about the internal and external struggles of the global left, but above all, as a narrative about the dynamic balance between history, fiction, and political and social revolution.