Mark your calendars for the presentation of a new book by Leonardo García Pabón, professor of Spanish, Department of Romance Languages. El cuento sentimental romántico en Bolivia (siglo XIX) is a 400-page anthology of short stories of the romantic period in Bolivia (19th century).

 

 

The anthology is preceded by an extensive introductory study (100 pages) that analyses the articulations of love, nation building, and narratives in the short stories. This anthology recuperates six representative short stories of the so-called sentimental romantic mode, which had been thus far overlooked by scholars and historians. These texts were originally published in journals, magazines, and newspapers in Bolivia and Peru, and this is their first modern edition.

 

In the introduction, Professor García-Pabón proposes a new classification of Bolivian narrative of the 19th century, separating short stories from novels (and other narratives). Moreover, his study examines each one of the six short stories in the anthology, showing the historical shift from romantic idealism predominant in the middle of the century to social realism being prevalent at the end of the century. His reading also highlights the different notions of nation, gender, love, and subjectivities that appear in these texts.