La visión extraoficial e intrahistoria que brinda la "novela-testimonio" acerca de distintos periodos históricos y sociales de Cuba obliga a una revisión del canon literario, tanto por la gestación particular de la obra como por la hibridez de sus características textuales. Partiendo de diversos testimonios emitidos por Miguel Barnet, fundador de esta modalidad narrativa, se esclarece el concepto resbaladizo de "novela-testimonio", su polémica inserción entre lo real y lo ficticio, entre lo literario y lo no literario y se discute la controversia que la cuestión del género ha suscitado. The extra-official and intra-historical vision offered by the testimony novel about different social and historical periods in Cuba demand a revision of the literary canon, as much for its particular inception as for the hybrid character of its textual features. Starting from diverse attestations made by Miguel Barnet, founder of this narrative mode, the slippery concept of novel-testimony is cleared up, as well as its polemical insertion between the real and the fictitious, and the controvery on the question of gender which it raised is duly discussed.