identidad racial y cultural en la obra de Alicia Yanez Cossio

Alicia Yanez Cossio, an established novelist and short story writer from Ecuador, reflects on the most serious social problems in her country. She is especially concerned with the Ecuadorian people's identity. In her works she describes how the Church and State, which promote and maintain a patriarchal social structure, have perpetuated the devaluation of women that began with the conquest. This study analyzes how women confront and define their gender as well as their race in two novels: Bruna, soroche y los tios (1972) and La cofradia del mullo del vestido de la Virgen Pipona (2002). As she traces Ecuadorian history, Yanez Cossio draws paralellisms between the loss of identity and gender, and focuses on the repercussions this has had in the lives of Ecuadorian women. Through the characters she offers possible solutions. This thesis analyzes the writer's perspective of the identity problem in this South American country and the fight of its people, most specifically women, to recover their identity by recognizing their indigenous roots and their gender, in a social environment that denies either are significant or relevant.