SOURCE: Caviedes, César N. “Tangible and Mythical Places in José M. Arguedas, Gabriel García Márquez, and Pablo Neruda.” GeoJournal 38, no. 1 (1996): 99-107.

In the following essay, Caviedes explores Arguedas's allegorical depictions of the physical geography of Peru in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, a work he declares “a synthesis of contemporary Peru” crafted by Arguedas “with perhaps more propriety and sensitivity than a historian, sociologist or geographer.”

Introduction

The flight that Latin American literature has taken during the last three decades is to be considered as an intellectual revolution. From a parochial, confused, baroque genre unbearably obsessed with social relevance and political messages, Latin American literature has now acquired a simulating universality that entertains and often stuns contemporary readers. Its striking success—not to be measured in volumes sold but in intrinsic quality and penetrating depth—has been achieved without renouncing the...