Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature
Among the readers, critics and publishers there are some who insist on using the term magical realism in relation to supernatural events which occur in Anaya’s fiction. In the few years after the publication mega-success of García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967), it was almost inevit...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) |
| Repositorio: | e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/51470 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10017/51470 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Anaya Bless Me, Ultima Chicano Literature Latin American Literature Magical realism Historia Literatura Sociología History Literature Sociology |
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Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literatureMiller, StephenAnayaBless Me, UltimaChicano LiteratureLatin American LiteratureMagical realismHistoriaLiteraturaSociologíaHistoryLiteratureSociologyAmong the readers, critics and publishers there are some who insist on using the term magical realism in relation to supernatural events which occur in Anaya’s fiction. In the few years after the publication mega-success of García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967), it was almost inevitable that beginning with Anaya’s first and spiritually rich novel, “Bless Me, Ultima” (1972), many readers and reviewers might read the novel as a kind of Chicano magical realist masterpiece. Now, Anaya was aware of this and acknowledged in 1999 that a work like “Tortuga”, the third and last volume of his “somewhat autobiographical New Mexico trilogy [ . . . ] verged on magical realism”. Nonetheless, Anaya never seems to have used that term in reference to “Bless Me, Ultima”, nor indeed to other narratives by him. And, as this study will establish, this is because Anaya recognized in the trilogy (whose second volumen is the 1976 “Heart of Aztlan”) the prior reality of the New Mexican cultural mestizaje between Spanish and Indigenous influences becoming one living and dynamic reality. The aim of this paper is 1) to account for and otherwise describe Anaya’s own representation of an essential, enchanted, 400-years-in-development New Mexican spiritual world, and how it develops in his work; and 2) to contextualize this unique world in fiction by Mexican American and Latin American writers during the last decades of the twentieth century. Much will be gained, it will be shown, by distancing Anaya’s world from a magical realist one. Think of how Isabel Allende distanced “The House of the Spirits” (1982) from “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as a profound process of inter-textual dialogue which allowed her to emerge from the tremendous shadow of García Márquez and tell her own stories her way. Or, pause to consider how the spells and powers of Ultima and the Trementina sisters have as much and as little explanation as many popular and biblical beliefs in the supernatural, but how those powers and spells shape characters’ lives within “Bless Me, Ultima”.Instituto Franklin de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá20222022-01-01journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501NAhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10017/51470reponame:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcaláinstname:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/514702026-06-18T11:13:07Z |
| dc.title.none.fl_str_mv |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| title |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| spellingShingle |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature Miller, Stephen Anaya Bless Me, Ultima Chicano Literature Latin American Literature Magical realism Historia Literatura Sociología History Literature Sociology |
| title_short |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| title_full |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| title_fullStr |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| title_sort |
Anaya’s spiritual world in itself, and in the context of Chicano and Latin American literature |
| dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv |
Miller, Stephen |
| author |
Miller, Stephen |
| author_facet |
Miller, Stephen |
| author_role |
author |
| dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv |
Anaya Bless Me, Ultima Chicano Literature Latin American Literature Magical realism Historia Literatura Sociología History Literature Sociology |
| topic |
Anaya Bless Me, Ultima Chicano Literature Latin American Literature Magical realism Historia Literatura Sociología History Literature Sociology |
| description |
Among the readers, critics and publishers there are some who insist on using the term magical realism in relation to supernatural events which occur in Anaya’s fiction. In the few years after the publication mega-success of García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (1967), it was almost inevitable that beginning with Anaya’s first and spiritually rich novel, “Bless Me, Ultima” (1972), many readers and reviewers might read the novel as a kind of Chicano magical realist masterpiece. Now, Anaya was aware of this and acknowledged in 1999 that a work like “Tortuga”, the third and last volume of his “somewhat autobiographical New Mexico trilogy [ . . . ] verged on magical realism”. Nonetheless, Anaya never seems to have used that term in reference to “Bless Me, Ultima”, nor indeed to other narratives by him. And, as this study will establish, this is because Anaya recognized in the trilogy (whose second volumen is the 1976 “Heart of Aztlan”) the prior reality of the New Mexican cultural mestizaje between Spanish and Indigenous influences becoming one living and dynamic reality. The aim of this paper is 1) to account for and otherwise describe Anaya’s own representation of an essential, enchanted, 400-years-in-development New Mexican spiritual world, and how it develops in his work; and 2) to contextualize this unique world in fiction by Mexican American and Latin American writers during the last decades of the twentieth century. Much will be gained, it will be shown, by distancing Anaya’s world from a magical realist one. Think of how Isabel Allende distanced “The House of the Spirits” (1982) from “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as a profound process of inter-textual dialogue which allowed her to emerge from the tremendous shadow of García Márquez and tell her own stories her way. Or, pause to consider how the spells and powers of Ultima and the Trementina sisters have as much and as little explanation as many popular and biblical beliefs in the supernatural, but how those powers and spells shape characters’ lives within “Bless Me, Ultima”. |
| publishDate |
2022 |
| dc.date.none.fl_str_mv |
2022 2022-01-01 |
| dc.type.none.fl_str_mv |
journal article http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 NA http://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43 |
| dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
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article |
| dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv |
http://hdl.handle.net/10017/51470 |
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http://hdl.handle.net/10017/51470 |
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Inglés eng |
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Inglés |
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eng |
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open access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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open access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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openAccess |
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application/pdf |
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Instituto Franklin de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá |
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Instituto Franklin de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá |
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reponame:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá instname:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) |
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Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) |
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e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá |
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e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá |
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