The Latin American Historical Novel through the Lens of the Dictator(ship) Novel

Abstract

Abstract There are many ways to trace the trajectory of the historical novel in Latin America. This genre is linked to one of its many subgenres: the dictator novel (which has also been called the dictatorship novel, the term used here to more broadly encompass novels that do not exclusively focus on the figure of the dictator, but portray dictatorship). One of the first historical novels in Latin America, Jorge Mármol’s Amalia (1851), is not coincidentally also Latin America’s first novel of dictatorship. This chapter analyzes the nature of historical fiction and how it has evolved in Latin America through the lens of the of the dictatorship novel. It shows how key dictatorship novels from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries epitomize the main tendencies of historical fiction during each period. The chapter examines various novels of dictatorship to illustrate the major characteristics of Latin American historical fiction (e.g., exploration of national identity, magical realism, historical symbolism, and intertextuality) and the major changes in the genre of historical fiction (and dictatorship novel subgenre) since its inception (including the turn toward feminism and postcolonialism, and the transition from the portrayal of concrete dictatorships directly experienced to the memory of dictatorship by second-generation writers). The chapter also relates dictatorship novels to other historical novels that are outside the dictatorship novel subgenre to further illustrate the connection between the development of the dictatorship novel and that of the Latin American historical novel.