This thesis discusses the general problem of the guerilla in Mexico through a historical and analytical study of Salvador Castañeda’s work. It is the first time that, in a clandestine way, forms of control, repression and sanctions against a political dissident group are denounced in Mexico, a country that is considered the most solid expression of democracy in Latin America. Perhaps, due to the prohibition to treat this phenomenon, La patria celestial remained unattended by Literary Criticism. Also, this study uses an analytic approach to the novel and to the mediate and immediate causes of the guerrilla, discusses the proceedings of the Mexican State for the persecution, imprisonment, human rights violations, torture, and demobilization of the armed movement Movimiento de Acción Revolucionaria (MAR). Likewise, this thesis analyzes the different strategies of representation and exposition of State terrorism (1964-1982), a phenomenon within the narratological design of La patria celestial and the effectiveness of this testimonial denunciation within realistic and fictional codes of the novelistic experience.
