Sarah Mahalli | Victoria University of Wellington (original) (raw)
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This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos p... more This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos profundos (1958) by Peruvian author José María Arguedas. These novels pertain to the indigenista literary current, in which authors from white, middleclass sectors of society wrote about Latin American indigenous peoples. As a movement, literary indigenismo is seen to last from the 1920s to the 1960s, but was particularly active during the 1920s and 1930s in Latin American nations with large indigenous populations, such as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Indigenista narratives (novels and short stories) were praised by some commentators for their 'authenticity' in the portrayal of indigenous Latin Americans, whereas others condemned them as 'inauthentic' representations, written by white middle-class outsiders. Peruvian critic Antonio Cornejo Polar believed that it was counterproductive to critique indigenista literature in terms of this dichotomy. He argued that the socio-cultural factors involved in the production and consumption of this literature were more complex and developed the concept of literary heterogeneity and a theory around it in order to lay the basis for more sophisticated analyses of indigenista literary forms that could account for their dual socio-cultural nature. This dissertation constitutes the first critical endeavour to adapt Cornejo Polar's concept of literary heterogeneity to these two particular indigenista novels, with the objective of carrying out a more thorough analysis of their literary characteristics and their socio-cultural implications.
This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos p... more This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos profundos (1958) by Peruvian author José María Arguedas. These novels pertain to the indigenista literary current, in which authors from white, middle-class sectors of society wrote about Latin American indigenous peoples. As a movement, literary indigenismo is seen to last from the 1920s to the 1960s, but was particularly active during the 1920s and 1930s in Latin American nations with large indigenous populations, such as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Indigenista narratives (novels and short stories) were praised by some commentators for their ‘authenticity’ in the portrayal of indigenous Latin Americans, whereas others condemned them as ‘inauthentic’ representations, written by white middle-class outsiders. Peruvian critic Antonio Cornejo Polar believed that it was counterproductive to critique indigenista literature in terms of this dichotomy. He argued that the socio-cultural factors involved in the production and consumption of this literature were more complex and developed the concept of literary heterogeneity and a theory around it in order to lay the basis for more sophisticated analyses of indigenista literary forms that could account for their dual socio-cultural nature. This dissertation constitutes the first critical endeavour to adapt Cornejo Polar’s concept of literary heterogeneity to these two particular indigenista novels, with the objective of carrying out a more thorough analysis of their literary characteristics and their socio-cultural implications
This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos p... more This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos profundos (1958) by Peruvian author José María Arguedas. These novels pertain to the indigenista literary current, in which authors from white, middleclass sectors of society wrote about Latin American indigenous peoples. As a movement, literary indigenismo is seen to last from the 1920s to the 1960s, but was particularly active during the 1920s and 1930s in Latin American nations with large indigenous populations, such as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Indigenista narratives (novels and short stories) were praised by some commentators for their 'authenticity' in the portrayal of indigenous Latin Americans, whereas others condemned them as 'inauthentic' representations, written by white middle-class outsiders. Peruvian critic Antonio Cornejo Polar believed that it was counterproductive to critique indigenista literature in terms of this dichotomy. He argued that the socio-cultural factors involved in the production and consumption of this literature were more complex and developed the concept of literary heterogeneity and a theory around it in order to lay the basis for more sophisticated analyses of indigenista literary forms that could account for their dual socio-cultural nature. This dissertation constitutes the first critical endeavour to adapt Cornejo Polar's concept of literary heterogeneity to these two particular indigenista novels, with the objective of carrying out a more thorough analysis of their literary characteristics and their socio-cultural implications.
This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos p... more This paper examines two novels, Huasipungo (1934) by Ecuadorian author Jorge Icaza and Los ríos profundos (1958) by Peruvian author José María Arguedas. These novels pertain to the indigenista literary current, in which authors from white, middle-class sectors of society wrote about Latin American indigenous peoples. As a movement, literary indigenismo is seen to last from the 1920s to the 1960s, but was particularly active during the 1920s and 1930s in Latin American nations with large indigenous populations, such as Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Indigenista narratives (novels and short stories) were praised by some commentators for their ‘authenticity’ in the portrayal of indigenous Latin Americans, whereas others condemned them as ‘inauthentic’ representations, written by white middle-class outsiders. Peruvian critic Antonio Cornejo Polar believed that it was counterproductive to critique indigenista literature in terms of this dichotomy. He argued that the socio-cultural factors involved in the production and consumption of this literature were more complex and developed the concept of literary heterogeneity and a theory around it in order to lay the basis for more sophisticated analyses of indigenista literary forms that could account for their dual socio-cultural nature. This dissertation constitutes the first critical endeavour to adapt Cornejo Polar’s concept of literary heterogeneity to these two particular indigenista novels, with the objective of carrying out a more thorough analysis of their literary characteristics and their socio-cultural implications