The Spanish American Regional Novel: Modernity and Autochthony (Cambridge Studies in Latin American and Iberian Literature, Series Number 2)

In a remarkable piece called "The Argentine Writer and Tradition" - a title not unrelated to that of T. S. Eliot's powerful and enduring essay - Borges attempted to come to terms with the then contested issue of writing within a national literary tradition. This is a radical reexamination of the regional novel, which plays a central part in the development of Latin American fiction in the first half of the twentieth century. Professor Alonso presents his argument through challenging readings of three works that are universally acknowledged as archetypes of the autochthonous modality: Rivera's La voragine, Gallegos' Dona Barbara, and Guiraldes' Don Segundo Sombra. He proposes a new view of the autochthonous as a discourse rather than a referent, this discourse being organized by the three intertwined categories of language, geography, and work Frontmatter Acknowledgements (page viii) 1 Introduction: the exoticism of the autochthonous (page 1) 2 The novela de la tierra (page 38) 3 Don Segundo Sombra (page 79) 4 Doña Bárbara (page 109) La vorágine (page 136) Epilogue (page 163) Notes (page 167) Bibliography (page 193) Index (page 209) Carlos J. Alonso. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 193-208).