The Spanish American Regional Novel Modernity and Autochthony [Paperback]

Carlos Alonso's study provides a radical re-examination of the novela de la tierra or regional novel.This study provides a radical re-examination of the regional novel, which played 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: Rivera's La Voragine; Gallegos's Dona Barbara and Guiraldes's Don Segundo.This study provides a radical re-examination of the regional novel, which played 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: Rivera's La Voragine; Gallegos's Dona Barbara and Guiraldes's Don Segundo.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.Acknowledgements; 1. The exoticism of the autochthonous; 2. The novela de la tierra; 3. Don Segundo Sombra; 4. Dona Barbara; 5. La voragine; 6. Epilogue; Bibliography. Alonso reexamines a category of Latin American fiction all but explained away in the past. He justifies...this category with arguments that by far surpass, both in intelligence and ingenuity, anything written on the subject before him...This is a very original, highly stimulating book. Sylvia Molloy, Yale University