FORGED TESTIMONIES: FABRICATING THE NATION IN SERGIO RAMÍREZ'S SOMBRAS NADA MÁS.

This article explores the erosion of the Latin American novel's power to forge a national identity by examining the fiction of the Nicaraguan novelist and politician Sergio Ramírez. In Ramírez's novel Sombras nada más techniques stemming from the Boom coexist with chapters typical of Latin American Testimonio narrative. Ramírez's effort to incorporate Testimonio voices into a Boom-like novel is read as a last-ditch attempt to rehabilitate a nationalist discourse originating in Sandinismo in the face of his own awareness of the futility of this task in the post-1990 cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]