CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LATIN AMERICAN AND IBERIAN LITERATURE 7 Miguel Angel Asturias's archaeology of return Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) is one of the notable literary figures in Latin America who in the 1920s contrived both to explore and define Latin American literature within the mainstream of Western history. He managed to be poetic, political, and mythological at the same time, with a degree of synthesis rarely achieved then or since. As is the case with many Latin Amer- ican writers, his work is inextricably linked with politics, and he lived in exile for many years. He was influenced by Indian mythology, fantasy, and surre- alism and was the first Latin American novelist to understand the implica- tions of anthropology and structural linguistics for culture and fiction. In 1967, Asturias became the first Latin American novelist to win the Nobel Prize in literature. Rene Prieto examines how Miguel Angel Asturias turned to the cultural traditions of the ancient Maya and combined them with the rhetoric of sur- realism in order to produce three highly complex and widely misunderstood masterpieces: the Leyendas de Guatemala (1930), Hombres de maiz (1949), and Mulata de tal (1963). Asturias was the first American author to succeed in portraying an indigenous world vision that is truly non-Western. Borrowing a variety of techniques from pre-Columbian manuscripts, he created a new type of literature that is still the best example of the cultural blend typifying the Americas. This is the first book to examine these three novels in terms of their composition beyond the usual political readings normally attributed to them. CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LATIN AMERICAN AND IBERIAN LITERATURE General Editor ENRIQUE PUPO-WALKER Centennial Professor of Spanish Director, Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies Vanderbilt University Editorial Board JOSE LUIS ABELLAN (Professor of Intellectual History, Universidad Complutense, Madrid) JOAQUIM-FRANCISCO COELHO (Nancy Clark Smith Professor of Portuguese and Comparative Literature, Harvard) ROBERTO GONZALEZ ECHEVARR1A (Bass Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, Yale) JAVIER HERRERO (William R. Kenan Professor of Spanish, Virginia) BARRY W.IFE (Cervantes Professor of Spanish, King's College, London) SYLVIA MOLLOY (Albert Schweitzer Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, New York University) PETER E. RUSSELL (Emeritus Professor of Spanish Studies, Oxford) In the same series: Gustavo Perez Firmat: The Cuban condition: translation and identity in modern Cuban literature Carlos J. Alonso: The Spanish American regional novel: modernity and autochthony Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria: Myth and archive: a theory of Latin American narrative Sylvia Molloy: At face value: autobiographical writing in Spanish America Derek Flitter: Spanish romantic literary theory and criticism Antonio Cussen: Bello and Bolivar: poetry and politics in the Spanish American Revolution Miguel Angel Asturias's archaeology of return RENE PRIETO CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521112451 © Cambridge University Press 1983 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1983 This digitally printed version 2009 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Prieto, Rene. Miguel Angel Asturias's archaeology of return / Rene Prieto. p. cm. — (Cambridge studies in Latin American and Iberian literature ; 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-43412-2 (he) 1. Asturias, Miguel Angel - Criticism and interpretation. 2. Magic realism (Literature) 3. Mayas in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PQ7499.A75Z83 1993 863 - dc20 92-24500 CIP ISBN 978-0-521-43412-6 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-11245-1 paperback To kawa and leps Contents Acknowledgments page ix Introduction 1 1 The tales that now no one believes: Leyendas de Guatemala 16 The first steps 17 Mythmaker 22 Proteus in the streets of Paris 27 Making 'Tabula rasa" of surrealism 33 The birth of neo-Indigenismo 37 Tropical anamorphosis 42 Resolution as solution 64 The sifting of ancient times 66 2 Becoming ants after the harvest: Hombres de maiz 85 Sinbad sails home 85 A unifying principle 90 Burning water 98 Opossum's dawn 104 Uneven Eve 108 Coyote's covenant 123 Tall tales made to order 127 A new American idiom 138 The role of animals 141 Numbers 150 Colors 154 3 If all the dead began to walk, the earth would be full of steps: Mulata de tal 161 The short-lived republic of "bread, land, and freedom" 162 After the fall 166 The devil bearing gifts 169 The transgressive power of eroticism 183 Money doesn't smell 196 The world upside down 213 In praise of folly 227 vii Vlll CONTENTS Conclusion: From death unto life 238 Notes 255 Bibliography 285 Index 295 Acknowledgments As is the case with most books, this one developed in directions that were unforeseeable in the beginning. Like a tree in a gar- den, it came to have a life of its own, sprouting branches in un- likely places. I watered, trimmed, and tended it, but was not alone in making it grow. During many unforgettable months at the ficole des Hautes £tudes, Roland Barthes shed light on the kind of methodology that would ultimately allow me to unravel the arcane mysteries of the Leyendas de Guatemala, Hombres de maiz, and Mulata de tal. It was he who convinced me of Greimas's relevance to my own research, who suggested I attend Lacan's seminar, who intro- duced me to Severo Sarduy. Sarduy, in turn, lent a critical ear to my enthusiastic ravings about Asturias, never failing to inject a note of humor into what might otherwise have been stuffy overebullience. During the year I spent at the £cole Normale Superieure in Paris, I was also very fortunate to have the expert advice of Jean-Louis Houdebine from the Sorbonne. I wish to thank him as well as a handful of very dear friends - Kay Beers, Bob and Polly Maguire, Rick and Martha Lapham, David and Jean Little- field, Catherine Borovski, Claude Chatelard, and Janet Beers- Winkler - without whose loyalty, intelligence, and support this project might not have got off the ground. I was able to continue beyond the first stage of planning and research in Paris thanks to the generosity of the National En- dowment for the Humanities. The Endowment has funded my work on Asturias on two occasions: first, with a year-long fellowship that provided the time, the tools, and the occasion to study Mayan anthropology; then, three years later, with a Travel to Collections grant that allowed me to return to Paris IX