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Annotated Bibliography

Gutiérrez, Lourdes Royano. Las novelas de Miguel Angel Asturias desde la teoría de la recepción. Salamanca: Universidad de Valladolid, 1993.

Las novelas de Miguel Angel Asturias desde la teoría de la recepción by author Lourdes Royano Gutiérrez has two main focuses. The first is on the theory of the reception of literary works (“la teoría de la estética de la recepción”) and the second is on the Hispano-American narrative (its birth, the use of myth, Maya/indigenous influence, and use of language). These two themes are first presented to readers and explained in depth. They are then applied to Miguel Angel Asturias’ most well-known works such as El señor presidente, Hombres de maíz, Mulata de tal, Maldarón, and Viernes de dolores. With each novel, Gutiérrez analyzes different steps in the writing process, motivations, influences, literary devices, forms of narration, composition of the argument, both negative and positive criticism, and more. This book is very well researched. It provides not only textual analysis, but social, economic, and political background through the experiences of Asturias.

This book will be very useful to the Wikipedia article. Gutiérrez has studied each of Asturias’ major works. With her research it will be possible to add on to the Major Works section in the article by providing information about the author’s motivations and influences for each book as well as historical context. Criticism for each book can either be included in these sections, or better, a new section on criticism and reception of his work can be created. There is a wealth of information in this book; it is relatively recent research (1993) and is a reliable source (university press). Gutiérrez also provides a lot of information about the author in addition to including many quotes from Asturias describing or explaining his own work.

In the second part of the book - the Hispano-American novel - there is a section on the use of language in Latin American literature and more specifically, the use of language in Asturias’ novels. Language is a very important focus in his novels; it is more than just a form of expression (112). Gutiérrez mentions that Asturias’ mixes poetry, sound, and frequent repetition into his prose (113). The contrast between the rich castellano vocabulary and the indigenous oral storytelling style of the narrative gives his writing a very unique form insofar as European and Latin American literature of the XX century. Gutiérrez as well as other literary critics acknowledge something called el “Gran Lengua” in Asturias’ works. Uslar Pietri writes that “Hay una figura del mundo del mestizaje que reaparece con frecuencia en la obra de Asturias, es la del ‘Gran Lengua’ el trujumán sagrado que traduce en palabras lo que estaba borrosamente en la percepción de los sentidos” (113). The author shows us how Asturias’ education, his life, and his ancestry have had a profound effect on his writing. Because of the study done in this book, I think it will be beneficial to the article to add a section about Asturias’ use of language in his novels.

What was apparent in Leyendas de Guatemala – colourful language and stream-of-consciousness/spoken word style of writing – is found in his other works as well. Gutiérrez argues that,

todas las técnicas desrealizadoras están puestas al servicio de una toma de conciencia de lo injusto y absurdo de la realidad, así como de la necesidad de transformarla. Asturias es en su lenguaje, como ya se ha dicho, la explosión del barroquismo tropical, la introducción de los sentidos en la escritura, la unión del surrealismo con el indigenismo, la recreación de la realidad, la transmutación en palabras, en un torrente verbal poderoso...de toda la mágica potencia del paisaje centroamericano (113).

This book will be very useful in contributing to already existing sections in the Asturias Wikipedia article as well as providing information for creating new sections such as Use of Language and Criticism and Reception. Although we cannot rely solely on the research or Gutiérrez to create these sections, it will be a great place to begin because of her thorough and comprehensive compilation of information.