Homofobia, masculinidad y disidencia sexual en La isla de los hombres solos de José León Sánchez

Abstract

This study examines the representations of sexual dissidence in La isla de los hombres solos (1967), a novel by the Costa Rican author José León Sánchez, as well as the dynamics of confinement that both condition and enable such representations. Drawing on the critical framework of so-called prison literature and other forms of state coercion, the analysis explores how heterosexual hegemony establishes regimes of oppression manifested through homophobia, patriarchy, and even expressions of homoeroticism. Through a literary analysis, the study argues that this testimonial narrative -representative of the Central American reality of its time- contributes, by incorporating into the narrative the presence of silenced and marginalized forms of otherness, to the questioning of twentieth-century sociohistorical discourses, while simultaneously rendering visible lives that have remained concealed and relegated