SOURCE: Kelley, Alita. “The Persistence of Center: José María Arguedas and the Challenge to the Postmodern Outlook.” In José María Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American Cultural Studies, edited by Ciro A. Sandoval and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval, pp. 70-84. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998.

In the following essay, Kelley asserts that Arguedas, despite using post-modernist techniques to depict the world of modern man, could not be a post-modernist; post-modernism, she contends, accepts no redemptive or transcendent force, whereas for Arguedas writing was itself a transcendent act of communion with the still-vibrant culture of the Quechua.

José María Arguedas (1911-1969), the Peruvian writer and anthropologist, based his novels and stories on the life and outlook of the Quechua-speaking Indians living in a world forced upon them, and saw as his literary mission the expression of what another writer, speaking of current literature in the language...