Imperfect Portraits of a Postcolonial Heroine: Laura Restrepo's "La novia oscura"

This article considers the conjunction between postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism, and magical realism. The colonial legacy of Colombia provides for the opposition between timeless female values and the chronological urgency and linear motion of masculine technology. The prostitute is the 'other of the other', representing ambivalence and contagion. Sayonara breaks boundaries between the sacred and the profane, between 'high' and 'low' places. The metafictional aspect of the text highlights the narrator's trajectory from thraldom to the will to know, to acceptance of unresolved mystery. Through the projection of powerful tropes, the prostitute empowers the postcolonial drive to social change.