Full Description
This study pieces together an image of Peru as a society through readings of a corpus of literary texts dating from the Conquest to the 1990s. Some chapters focus on recurrent topics: the centralization of power in Lima; the position of the indigenous population; literacy as power; the issue of national identity in a country characterized by diversity. It also examines other literary motifs such as dramatic social changes, communities living in isolation, the mestizo condition, and the hopes invested in modernization.
Contents
The world upside down; Lima the horrible; travellers' tales; from Indians to "Cholos"; mestizo heraldry; the power of the book; history as legitimation; the wait for the cybernetic fairy; towards a rainbow nation.
