Irlandés in the Americas: Irish Themes and Affinities in Contemporary Spanish American Narrative

Abstract

This dissertation examines Irish characters, themes and literary affinities in modern and contemporary Spanish American literature (1944-2011), focusing on novels and short stories by eight authors: El otro Joyce by Roberto Ferro, “Dublín al sur” by Isidoro Blaisten, El sueño del celta by Mario Vargas Llosa, selections from Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, Entre gringos y criollos and Quema su memoria by Eduardo Cormick, selected stories by Viviana O’Connell, La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos by Luis Rafael Sánchez, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. As the above list of authors suggests, Irish themes, characters, and intertextualities are present throughout the region’s Spanish-language literature, from some of its most celebrated writers like Borges and Vargas Llosa to contemporary authors such as O’Connell and Cormick. The prologue introduces the historical context of the Irish in Latin America as well as a theoretical framework to support the analyses in subsequent chapters. Each chapter is then dedicated to a different facet of the Irish-Latin American literary connection. Chapter 1 explores the translation of James Joyce into Spanish and the way in which contemporary Argentine writers dialogue with Joyce, problematizing the act of translation. Chapter 2 focuses on the ambiguous nature of Irish characters in Borges’s Ficciones and Vargas Llosa’s historical fiction El sueño del celta. Chapter 3 is dedicated to Latin American writers of direct Irish descendance and their expression of Irishness in the Americas. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzes echoes of Oscar Wilde in Caribbean Latino literature. The central question is how and why these Irish connections manifest themselves in contemporary Spanish American narrative. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Irish characters and themes present a broader, more hybrid vision of Latin American identity, recognizing the multiplicity of languages, narratives, and selves.