A philosophical reading La ceniza del libertador by Fernando Cruz Kronfly

Abstract

La Ceniza del Libertador (1987) by Fernando Cruz Kronfly reinvents the last days of Simón Bolívar in his trip from Honda to Santa Marta by the Magdalena River. I say reinvents, rather than narrates, since the author is more interested in reflecting about the universals proper of human existence through Bolívar, than in meticulously narrating historical data. In this way, it is possible to observe how literature presents opportunities to think about fundamental questions of life by means of fiction built from poetic language. Based on this idea, the following essay intends to carry out a philosophical reading of the novel taking into account the hints that the same author highlights in La sombrilla planetaria (1994) to later evince how philosophical ideas are portrayed by means of poetic images, which permits to analyze in depth, topics such as aesthetics in death, time and human condition.