Thomas Ward examines Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's seventeenth-century work and how it influenced post-independence Peruvian literature in the nineteenth century. As literati struggled to define their fledgling Peruvian Republic, they found inspiration in the dual-heritage author Garcilaso de la Vega's previously banned work, Royal Commentaries. Ward focuses on four authors who turned back to the colonial-era chronicler Inca Garcilaso de la Vega as they synthesized Inkan tradition into modern national thinking: Juana Manuela Gorriti, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Manuel Gonzalez Prada, and Ricardo Palma. An element of this cultural dynamic included gender awareness. At the time, women were accepted in the literary establishment much more than they would be in the following century, a fact Ward highlights in this study of the two most famous men authors and the two most famous women authors from this time period. In Inca Garcilaso de la Vega Ward brings gender and ethnic perspectives into a postcolonial discussion of a reality that was striving to establish "Peruvian" as a bona fide proper noun with substantive denotative and connotative meaning.
Thomas Ward is professor emeritus of Spanish at Loyola University. Among his numerous books are Coloniality and the Rise of Liberation Thinking during the Sixteenth Century, The Formation of Latin American Nations: From Late Antiquity to Early Modernity, and Decolonizing Indigeneity: New Approaches to Latin American Literature.
"Inca Garcilaso de la Vega offers an erudite, sophisticated approach to the influence of Inca Garcilaso's writings after Peru's establishment as a nascent nation-state in 1821. Mapping a colossal corpus of texts, methodologies, and debates that were mining Inca Garcilaso's text archive in the second part of the nineteenth century, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega provides an engaging account of writers who founded Peru's national literature. One significant achievement of this book is that it demonstrates how the works of Juana Manuela Gorriti, Ricardo Palma, Clorinda Matto de Turner, and Manuel Gonzalez Prada are immersed in Garcilaso's world. At the same time, this book comments on the dynamics of gender and race that determined complex destinies, especially for women writers, during this violent period."--Enrique E. Cortez, professor of Latin American literatures and cultures at Portland State University "Carefully researched and clearly presented, Thomas Ward's study takes Inca Garcilaso to another dimension as he discusses how key nineteenth-century authors embraced his writings as a springboard to envision a new Peruvian culture. Through their readings of Royal Commentaries, these key writers reconstructed the concept of nationhood guided by the strands of Incaismo and Indigenismo as well as the incorporation of female concerns. Ward's ability to link history, literature, culture, national, and international politics provides a singular overview and nuanced appreciation of a complex period of Peru's Republican era."--Raquel Chang-Rodriguez, distinguished professor emerita at the Graduate Center, City University of New York "This is the first book that offers a comprehensive, thorough analysis of how the major literary authors in late nineteenth-century Peru integrate the work by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, arguably the most canonical Latin American mestizo author from the colonial period to create a unique national literature. Thomas Ward's study fills an important gap in the critical literature and will become required reading in a variety of subfields within Latin American literature and beyond."--Juan J. Daneri, associate professor of Hispanic studies at East Carolina University "While El Inca Garcilaso's prose has been amply studied, it has never been looked at from the perspective of woman writers in particular, as this book looks at it. This is a real revolution for gender studies and colonial Latin American studies as one. Thomas Ward presents theory as a practical and valuable tool for textual understanding and analysis, and not only for academics. This makes for a far more readable example of literary criticism than what we usually read in the humanities these days."--Sharonah Esther Fredrick, author of An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods: Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan "Popul Vuh" and the Andean "Huarochiri Manuscript"
