Valores culturales e identidad nacional en Largo ha sido este día de José Manuel Crespo

Cultural Values and National Identity in Largo ha sido este día by José Manuel Crespo. The main topic of this paper is the exposition of some of the cultural values and certain characteristics of national identity shown in the autobiography Largo ha sido este día [It’s been a long day] (1987), by the Colombian writer José Manuel Crespo. The research is based on the analysis and interpretation of the various elements that compose the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels of the work and, especially, on the role played by individual and collective memory for the organization of the narrative discourse. The features exposed are related to Ciénaga (the author’s birthplace), in which the importance of the social group that surrounds the writer’s environment and the influence of oral testimony are discovered, as well as certain words related to fauna and flora. Within the autobiographical space, customs and traditions of the period in question (1940s and 1950s) and the acquisition of knowledge through the discourse exposed by all the characters referred to, are linked. The author manifests through this work not only personal aspects of his childhood, but also the transcendence of the culture of Ciénaga when he evokes features that allow knowing facts that affect national memory and identity