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This study analized the fictionalization of orality in the narrative discourse of Joaquín Beleño’s novel Gamboa Road Gang, from a textual-discursive and sociolinguistic perspective, with the aim of understanding how language becomes a narrative-discursive strategy to represent the historical reality of the mid-20th century. It was argued that orality is not merely a mimetic device, but a narrative and discursive strategy that articulates an aesthetic of marginality and ethnic discrimination, as well as a critical tool against neocolonial linguistic and social hegemonies. Based on a qualitative methodology with an interdisciplinary approach, the research describes how the oralized narrator, code-switching between Spanish and Creole English, the use of fillers, interjections, and narrative polyphony configure a fictional universe that gives voice to characters confined within the prison of the Panamanian Canal Zone enclave. This analysis was demonstrated that fictionalized orality functions as a linguistic and symbolic mechanism of resistance and identity in the face of colonial oppression.
