Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2010

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Modern Foreign Languages

Major Professor

Luis C. Cano

Committee Members

Michael Handelsman, Nuria Cruz-Cámara, Jana Morgan

Abstract

The dissertation “Ambigüedades éticas y estéticas: La narrativa peruana contemporánea y la violencia política” explores the complex relationship of literature and the recent history of Peru by analyzing ideological positions expressed in three novels, Alonso Cueto’s La hora azul (2005), Santiago Roncagliolo’s Abril rojo (2006), and Daniel Alarcón’s Radio Ciudad Perdida (2007), and in a collection of short stories, Jorge Eduardo Benavides’ La noche de Morgana (2005). This dissertation discusses how these authors employ different literary discourses (detective fiction, literature of the fantastic and the dystopian novel) to recreate artistically the period of internal conflict, as well as the ethical perspectives that each artistic option entails. The analysis continues a long tradition of scholarship in Latin American Literary Studies that examines the way in which history is (re)presented and questioned in literature. By comparing the writings of Peruvian authors based in different cultural areas (Peru, Spain and the United States), this study proposes an original approach to these works which also considers the concept of ‘Peruvian Literature’ (‘National Literature’) in this age of globalization and the ever-expanding Andean diaspora.

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