Raza de Bronce (Race of Bronze) is a 1919 novel by the Bolivian writer Alcides Arguedas. It is considered one of the most important novels in Bolivian literature, and has been recognized as such by a number of critical studies as well as by the Bolivian government. The novel was published by Prometeo; a French translation appeared in 1919 but as of 2023, no English translation exists.
Divided in two parts, the novel is a sympathetic treatment of the plight of the Aymara Indians living in the hostile yet beautiful landscape of the Andean altiplano. Arguedas explores the social, economic and ecological conditions facing the highland Indians, focusing as well on the racism and exploitation of white colonizers.
Written at a time of great political turbulence, Raza de Bronce is considered to be the first text in the indigenismo movement in Bolivia, and a notable work even in the wider context of Latin America. It has been a standard text in the Bolivian school curriculum for many decades. In 1976, it was adapted by the theatre company La Máscara into an award-winning play that has remained popular with audiences. [1] [2]
Cholo is a loosely defined Spanish term that has had various meanings. Its origin is a somewhat derogatory term for people of mixed-blood heritage in the Spanish Empire in Latin America and its successor states as part of castas, the informal ranking of society by heritage. Cholo no longer necessarily refers only to ethnic heritage, and is not always meant negatively. Cholo can signify anything from its original sense as a person with one indigenous parent and one Mestizo parent, "gangster" in Mexico, an insult in some South American countries, or a "person who dresses in the manner of a certain subculture" in the United States as part of the cholo subculture.
Amado Nervo also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo, was a Mexican poet, journalist and educator. He also acted as Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay. His poetry was known for its use of metaphor and reference to mysticism, presenting both love and religion, as well as Christianity and Hinduism. Nervo is noted as one of the most important Mexican poets of the 19th century.
Bronze race is a term used since the early 20th century by Hispanic American writers of the indigenista and americanista schools to refer to the mestizo population that arose in the Americas with the arrival of Latin European settlers and their intermingling with the New World's Amerindian peoples.
René Barrientos Ortuño was a Bolivian military officer and politician who served as the 47th president of Bolivia twice nonconsecutively from 1964 to 1966 and from 1966 to 1969. During much of his first term, he shared power as co-president with Alfredo Ovando from 1965 to 1966 and prior to that served as the 30th vice president of Bolivia in 1964.
José María Arguedas Altamirano was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist. Arguedas was an author of mestizo descent who was fluent in the Quechua language. That fluency was gained by Arguedas’s living in two Quechua households from the age of 7 to 11. First, he lived in the Indigenous servant quarters of his stepmother's home, then, escaping her "perverse and cruel" son, with an Indigenous family approved by his father. Arguedas wrote novels, short stories, and poems in both Spanish and Quechua.
Alcides Arguedas Díaz was a Bolivian writer and historian. His literary work, which had a profound influence on the Bolivian social thought in the first half of the twentieth century, addresses issues related to national identity, miscegenation, and indigenous affairs. His most significant work, Raza de bronce (1919), is considered one of the most influential Bolivian literary works and a precursor of indigenism.
Cristina Peri Rossi is a Uruguayan novelist, poet, translator, and author of short stories.
The William Faulkner Foundation (1960–1970) was a charitable organization founded by the novelist William Faulkner in 1960 to support various charitable causes, all educational or literary in nature.
The Spanish expression la Raza has historically been used to refer to the mixed-race populations, considered as an ethnic or racial unit historically deriving from the Spanish Empire, and the process of racial intermixing during the Spanish colonization of the Americas with the indigenous populations of the Americas.
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of Latin America. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries.
The Lencan languages are a small linguistic family from Central America, whose speakers before the Spanish conquest spread throughout El Salvador and Honduras. But by the beginning of the 20th century, only two languages of the family survived, Salvadoran Lenca or Potón and Honduran Lenca, which were described and studied academically; Of them, only Salvadoran Lenca still has current speakers, despite the fact that indigenous people belonging to the Lenca ethnic group exceed between 37,000 and 100,000 people.
Forrest Hylton is an ethnohistorian of Latin America and the Caribbean and Visiting Professor of History in the graduate school at the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA). He has also taught at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá), Harvard University, Northwestern University, and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellín. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University's Tamiment Library, a Faculty Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for American History at Harvard University, and a Guest Researcher at Linnaeus University.
Movima is a language that is spoken by about 1,400 of the Movima, a group of Native Americans that resides in the Llanos de Moxos region of the Bolivian Amazon, in northeastern Bolivia. It is considered a language isolate, as it has not been proven to be related to any other language.
The constant political turmoil that Bolivia has experienced throughout its history has slowed the development of Bolivian literature. Many talents have had to emigrate or were silenced by the internal conflict. In recent years the literature of Bolivia has been in a process of growth, with the appearance of new writers. Older writers such as Adela Zamudio, Oscar Alfaro, and Franz Tamayo continue to be important.
Fernando Chaves Reyes was a novelist, essayist, and journalist. He was the first Ecuadorian writer to depict an indigenous theme in his writings.
The nations of Bolivia and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1831. Both nations are members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Latin American Integration Association, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
Yawar Fiesta is the first novel by the Peruvian author José María Arguedas, published in 1941. It is considered as part of the Latin-American indigenista movement. Set in the village of Puquio it depicts the performance of a bullfight in the Andean style (turupukllay) as part of a celebration called 'yawar punchay'. According to critics, it is the most successful of Arguedas' novels, from a formal point of view. The author's effort is appreciated for offering the most authentic version possible of Andean life, without resorting to convention or the paternalism of previous indigenous literature.
Deep Rivers is the third novel by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas. It was published by Losada in Buenos Aires in 1958, received the Peruvian National Culture Award in 1959, and was a finalist in the William Faulkner Foundation Ibo-American award (1963). Since then, critical interest in the work of Arguedas has grown, and the book has been translated into several languages.
José Edmundo Paz-Soldán Ávila is a Bolivian writer. His work is a prominent example of the Latin American literary movement known as McOndo, in which the magical realism of previous Latin American authors is supplanted by modern realism, often with a technological focus. His work has won several awards. He has lived in the United States since 1991, and has taught literature at Cornell University since 1997.
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Guatemalan poet-diplomat, novelist, playwright and journalist. Winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967, his work helped bring attention to the importance of indigenous cultures, especially those of his native Guatemala.