Title: Colonial tropes and postcolonial tricks : rewriting the tropics in the novela de la selva /
Authors: Wylie, Lesley
Publisher: Liverpool University Press,
Year: 2009
Subjects: Spanish American fiction History and criticism.; Jungles in literature.; Postcolonialism in literature.
Abstract: The vision of the South American rainforest as a wilderness of rank decay, poisonous insects and bloodthirsty 'savages' in the Spanish American novela de la selva has often been interpreted as a belated imitation of European travel literature. This book offers a new reading of the genre by arguing that, far from being derivative, the novela de la selva re-imagined the tropics from a Latin American perspective, redefining tropical landscape aesthetics and ethnography through parodic rewritings of European perceptions of Amazonia in fictional and factual travel writing.