The Narrative of Amanda Labarca and the Criollismo: Notes for Inserting it into Chilean Literary History (Or Narrating It To Depict And Change Chile)

Abstract

This paper explores a set of narratives that the writer, educator and feminist leader Amanda Labarca published in the first quarter of the 20th century, namely the novel En tierras extrañas (1915), the short novel La lámpara maravillosa and the collection of stories Cuentos a mi señor (both 1921). We are interested in inscribing this corpus of Labarca’s work mainly in the criollismo, thought of as the Latin American and Chilean literary sensibility of the first half of the 20th century. With this, we contribute to the studies that have set out to explore one of Labarca’s most unknown areas: her literature. Specifically, it traces the spirit that runs through these texts, emphasizing the typification of discourses, characters and social contexts that allow sustaining the proposal of analyzing this prose from the point of view of criollismo. Indeed, the results show the presence of several characteristics of this trend, such as the presence of the peripheral or marginal element, the traveler as protagonist or the enhancement of local customs. It is concluded that Labarca’s lyrics dialogue with the proposals of Chilean criollismo, although they are also inspired by other aesthetic and ideological proposals of her time.