El largo atardecer del caminante

El largo atardecer del caminante (Eng. The Long Dusk of the Wanderer) is a historical novel published in 1992 by the Argentine writer Abel Posse (* 1939, Córdoba).

content

The first-person narrator of the novel is the aging, unsuccessful and disaffected conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca , who retired in Seville after his militarily and politically unsuccessful campaigns during the Spanish conquest of Latin America.

In retrospect, the novel tells the shipwreck and the legendary odyssey of Cabeza de Vacas through northern Mexico and the southern part of today's USA , as documented in the Chronicle of Naufragios by the historical figure Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. In addition to historically tangible facts, Abel Posse adds a variety of fictional elements, such as a love story between the aging conquistador and a young librarian in Seville, which motivates Álvar Núñez of the novel to write a new, 'true' version of his chronicle: This describes it how he gradually takes over Indian culture and values ​​on his odyssey, marries an Indian woman and fathered two children with her, before he succeeds in returning to Spanish rule.

Abel Posse thus presents the historical person of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de la Vaca in a new light: He emphasizes the cultural hybridity that results from the encounter of the old world with the new - as the only gain from a military, economic and personal one Defeat that conquering America means for him.

background

With this deconstructing perspective, the work fits into postcolonial and postmodern literary history .