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Theory and Practice of Relation: José Luis González, Édouard Glissant, and the Task of the Storyteller

Abstract The work of Puerto Rican author José Luis González (1926–1997) has been widely anthologized and praised for its realistic depictions of life in the island and in the diaspora. Scholars have variously described his writing as 'neo-realist' and 'classic', assuming a transparency of language that has also earned comparisons with the insight and honesty of sociological or ethnographic works. This paper argues that, while such approximations are true to his commitment to social justice, they fail to recognize González's innovations as a writer and mask the complexities of the political engagement of his writing. A fuller account emerges when his work is considered alongside the Martinican Édouard Glissant's theory and practice of relation, understood both as storytelling and as a mode of being that remains open to the diversity within and among entities. More precisely, I focus on González's grappling with the figure of the conteur in its guises as narrator, storyteller, or writer to see how he enacts a poetics and politics of relation that offer a moving and productive way to bring about a Caribbean literature presenting an alternative to the sterile imitation of Western forms and to a folklorism tinged with nostalgia.