Date of Award

Spring 2023

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

LACS: Hispanic Studies

First Advisor

Priscilla Meléndez

Abstract

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) would go on to produce an impressive corpus of notable works that includes novels, short stories, and journalistic writings. Although he gained much of his notoriety for his novels and short stories, García Márquez was an experienced journalist who established in 1994 the Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano which praised the rigor and quality of works which journalists produced and provided a platform to create a network of writers for ideological exchange. This respect for and involvement with journalism applied directly to García Márquez’s work with the chronicle, a genre which merged the literary techniques of the novel with the informational and time-oriented agenda of journalism which is considered an innovational force with contemporary Latin American writing. Gabriel García Márquez’s Doce cuentos peregrinos, published in 1992 yet written over the course of two decades prior, compiles twelve snapshots of the lives of a variety of Latin American individuals, generally of middle or upper classes, during their travels to Europe. The title of this collection is translated for publication as Strange Pilgrims, yet it literally translates to “Twelve Pilgrim Stories”. Using definitions of the Latin American chronicle provided by authors such as Ignacio Corona, Aníbal González, and Viviane Maheiux, and twentieth century perspectives on art written by Walter Benjamin in his piece The Work of Art in in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, this project will work to showcase that these twelve “stories” are indeed powerful examples of the chronicle. Concentrating on three of them – “Buen viaje, Señor Presidente”, “La Santa”, and “El rastro de tu sangre en la nieve”— it is evident that García Márquez produced a collection of chronicles which serve as political critiques of the suppressive Colombian government connected by a series of dates and periodical installments to display the evolution of characters from 1976 to 1981. By creating periodical installments which report upon the lives of these individuals external to Colombia, by coinciding the voice of the author with the voice of a separate narrating character within the work, and the blending of fantasy with reality within Doce cuentos peregrinos allows for it to fluctuate between the two genres: the short story and the chronicle.

Comments

Senior thesis completed at Trinity College, Hartford CT for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic Studies.

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