Semester Award Granted
Spring 2025
Submission Date
May 2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Ayşe Papatya Bucak
Abstract
The stories in this collection are a mixture of explorations into the ineffable nature of memory and time, and reflections on such themes as redemption, loyalty, institutional and political violence, power and oppression, loss, regret, and exile.
The characters are at times disaffected, at times hopeful, at times oblivious to the causes of their plight. They are marginal, and struggling to keep head above water, on the edge of despair, holding tightly to the lifesaver thrown by a word, a memory, an image of solace. Above all, they are the estranged, the economically and emotionally vulnerable, yet resilient, fighters, faithful, believers in the power of redemption. These characters do their best to finish the day unscathed, and whatever realization they happen to stumble upon after the day is done, are enigmas in whose company they learn to live.
The settings of most stories are sometimes sketched, barely outlined, enveloped by the fog of remembrance. Sometimes, they are concrete, grounded, commonplace, quotidian and familiar, evoking a silent camera panning on landscape scenes taken from a documentary. Most of the scenes take place in small, unnamed Andean towns, but the narrative elements, themes and motifs, suggests a Latin-American country; however, the scenes and characters could be taken from anywhere else –the reader decides.
During the time I was writing these stories, I lost my mother, and she lost her mother and sister. During this time, my daughter was born miles away from them. So, it was unavoidable that the meditations on life, time, exile, and redemption work their way into the worlds of some of the stories presented here. With this in consideration, one may say that the stories in They Whispered, Hands Over Their Mouths: Stories are also a reflection on the fleeting nature of existence and change, personal and collective.
Recommended Citation
Farfán, Javier Cedrón, "THEY WHISPERED, HANDS OVER THEIR MOUTHS: STORIES" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 74.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/74