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HÓLMFRÍÐUR GARÐARSDÓTTIR
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social entities.17 The characters of her novels define their ‘selves’ in
comparison to others around them, while their understanding and
perception of the collective ‘we’ is defined in relation to a more dis-
tant ‘other’. Hence, regional identity, where ethnic, racial, linguistic
and gendered differences are taken into account, is multi-layered and
sensitive. While each member has to determine his/her place of
belonging, being a political subject requires either accepting some-
one else’s definition or going through the process of finding a place
of one’s own within the range of options, or simply living outside,
or at the margins of, the establishment’s ever-changing definition of
the nation. The freedom to choose can be liberating, but it can also
be restrictive and marked by social expectations.
Therefore, before turning to Rossi’s literary representation of the
coastal region in and around Limón, the myth of the supposed racial
uniqueness of the Costa Ricans needs to be addressed.18 In The West
Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic
Minority, Ronald N. Harpelle stresses the fact that the Central
Valley, the highlands hosting the current capital San José and its
predecessor Cartago, is commonly seen as “the real Costa Rica”,
while “Limón is exotic, populated by people of African descent” (xiii
and 21). Similarly, Carolina A. Miranda and Paige R. Penland point
out that native people and those of African descent living outside the
Central Valley have been ignored and excluded from the Costa Rican
national imaginary.19 This exclusion of ethnic minorities strength-
ened, as Quesada Soto notes, “the stereotype of a white country, ra-
cial and cultural homogeneity, on the pattern of a Western civilized
17 Rossi had previously published the novels, María la noche (Barcelona: Lumen, 1985) and La loca de
Gandoca (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1991), as well as a collec-
tion of short stories entitled Situaciones conyugales (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial REI, 1993). Her
narrative has earned her various literary awards, such as the Premio Nacional de Novela Aquilero
Echeverría in 1985 and 2002. Rossi´s most recent publication is a historical novel titled La romana
indómita (Mexico City: Planeta, 2016).
18 Quince Duncan and Carlos Meléndez explain that: “El comercio del esclavo negro aligeró un poco
la dura carga que quiso hacer caer sobre el indígena, pero fue la base para una situación de crueldad
para el africano o sus descendientes. Fueron ellos ante la ley, meras herramientas de trabajo, pro-
piedad absoluta de su dueño. La situación personal cambió, tanto de acuerdo con el trato que el
amo le diera, como por el medio en que les tocó vivir, ya rural o urbano”. El negro en Costa Rica,
San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Costa Rica, 1981. Here p. 33.
19 Miranda, Carolina A. and Paige R. Penland. Costa Rica. London: Lonely Planet. 2004, p. 78.