Abstract

ARIAS CARBONE, Giovanna. Abraham Valdelomar and the Topos of the “Dead City”: Dialogue and Identity. Lexis [online]. 2020, vol.44, n.1, pp.175-203. ISSN 0254-9239.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18800/lexis.202001.006.

The two short novels by Abraham Valdelomar, La ciudad muerta and La ciudad de los tísicos, have been neglected by traditional critics, despite the fact that they both propose an ideological and aesthetic revolution. Based on the well-known literary topos of the “dead city”, these works represent the end of the colonial city. A comparative analysis allows to examine how they depict two ways of dealing with the death of the recent national past: a Christian, sinister and intimidating discourse shaped by its ruins (in La ciudad muerta); and an Andean, benevolent depiction of the past, as embodied by the tuberculosis patients who inhabit a purgatory alike village (in La ciudad de los tísicos). In the context of an intense political debate on national identity and national literature, the author aims to develop a hybrid discourse within the modernist narrative, where different concepts of death coexist and a new literary art emerges from the confluence rather than the celebration of a time “in ruins”.

Keywords : Abraham Valdelomar; La ciudad muerta; La ciudad de los tísicos; Peruvian Modernist Novel; Nationalist Discourses.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )