Novel
Raza de bronce
Not translated into English
Alcides Arguedas · 1919
Synopsis
On the shore of Lake Titicaca, on the Kohahuyo hacienda run by the Pantoja family, young Agiali loves Wata-Wara. The master sends him with three neighbours, Manuno, Quilco and Cachapa, to buy seed in the warm valleys of the Yungas: the road crosses the high plateau and rivers swollen by melting glaciers, and Manuno drowns in a flood. On their return, the men find masters who sell dear at the store, have the women weave and choose them at will. Agiali marries Wata-Wara, and old Choquehuanka, a healer, keeps the ancient rites.
Context
A first version, Wuata Wuara, appeared in 1904 and went almost unnoticed; it took fifteen years for it to become this novel. In 1919, invited by Armando Chirveches, who was himself entering a novel, the author submitted his text to the competition of the González y Medina house, then withdrew it before the jury's reading; the publisher, who had bought the rights, printed it while he was on a mission abroad, without his having been able to correct the proofs. A second edition appeared in Valencia in 1923, with a prologue by Rafael Altamira, and the text has been reprinted ever since, up to the Buenos Aires edition of 1945, regarded as definitive. Plon published a French translation in 1960, prefaced by André Maurois.
Who it is for
In Spanish, translated into French; long descriptions of the altiplano and the lake, and scenes of violence that the narrative does not veil.
Prizes and reception
Read in schools for decades, regarded as the founding novel of Spanish American indigenism, and counted among the fifteen fundamental novels of the country.
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