Colonial Tropes and Postcolonial Tricks

Download or read book Colonial Tropes and Postcolonial Tricks written by Lesley Wylie and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a new reading of the Spanish-American novela de la selva genre, often interpreted as a belated imitation of European travel literature. Arguing against the commonly held opinion of the genre’s derivative nature, Colonial Tropes and Postcolonial Tricks examines how novela de la selva fiction reimagined the tropics from a Latin American perspective and redefined tropical landscape aesthetics and ethnography through parodic rewritings of European perspectives. Analyzing four emblematic novels of the genre, this book considers the crucial place of the jungle as a locus for the contestation of national and literary identity by post-independence Latin American writers.