In the past 30 years, a global culture of “truth telling” has emerged. Along with truth commission reports, testimonial literature has become an essential source of lived political history. Survivors of serious human rights violations have recorded their experiences in the form of first-person narratives designed to counter the “official story.” In this course, we study the genre of testimonial literature by reading individual accounts in their national and historical contexts. What is the role of “story telling” in healing and reconciliation on an individual and national level? In what ways does testimony reveal hidden or alternative truths? How do narratives help to reconstitute the past, preserve memory, and make national history? We read classical testimonial accounts, such as I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. We also consider the relationship between truth and fiction in the works of Ariel Dorfman, Carlos Cerda, and Horacio Castellanos Moya. Critical texts by John Beverly, Idelber Avelar, Jean Franco, and others. This is a world literature course that considers case studies from Latin America and the Caribbean in the late 20th century.