Abstract
Augusto Roa Bastos’s narrative bases itself upon a patent transtextuality as well as a marked propensity to continuously modify (reorganize, redistribute, and revise) the texts that form it.1 These elements are supported by the “poetics of variations,” outlined in the “Author’s Note” in the final version of Hijo de Hombre (Son of Man). This poetics highlights the uninterrupted modification and communication with other texts that is an integral part of the composition of a literary work.2 Both features—modification and communication with other texts—accentuate the Paraguayan writer’s search to achieve a text that moves constantly, resisting any type of closure, including that of the printed letter.3 The immediate consequences of this gestational conception of the text are the work’s inconclusiveness and an intentional disruption of genre.4
“If I were asked to describe my literature, I would say it is an escape to the future.”
—Augusto Roa Bastos
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Works Cited
Aldana, Adelfo L. La cuentística de Augusto Koa Bastos. Montevideo: Ediciones Geminis, 1975. Print.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Questōes de literatura e de estética: A teoria do romance. 5th ed. Trans. Aurora Fornoni Bernardini, José Pereira Junior etal. Sao Paulo: Hucitec/Annablume, 2002. Print.
Barrera, Trinidad. “Otra vuelta de tuerca a Roa.” Dos orillasy un encuentro: la literatura paraguaya actual. Ed. Mar Langa Pizarro. Alicante: Centro de Estudios Iberoamerícanos Mario Benedettí, 2005. 105–12. Print.
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1466–70. Print.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny” The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 929–52. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Trans. James Strachey New York: Norton, 1962. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood. Trans. Alan Tyson. New York: Norton, 1964. Print.
Harrington, Michael. The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1962. Print.
Herszenhorn, Jaime. “Refiexiones sobre la temática de los cuentos de Augusto Roa Bastos”. Homenaje a Augusto Koa Bastos; variaciones interpretativas en torno a su obra. Comp. Helmy F.Giacoman. Long Island City, NY: Las Americas, 1973. 251–66. Print.
Kafka. Franz. The Complete Stories. Ed. Nahun Norbet Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. Print.
Luna Sellés, Carmen. La narrativa breve de Augusto Koa Bastos. Alicante: Instituto de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, 1993. Print.
Marx, Karl. Karl Marx: Selected Writings. Ed. David Mc Lellan. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Pedretti, Carlo. “The ‘Pointing Lady.’” The Burlington Magazine 111.795, (1969): 339–46. Print.
Rama, Angel. Los dictadores latinoamericanos. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1976. Print.
Roa Bastos, Augusto. Cuentos complétas. Asunción: El Lector, 2003. Print.
Roa Bastos, Augusto. Hijo de hombre. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. Print.
Roa Bastos, Augusto. Moriencia. Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1969. Print.
Roa Bastos, Augusto. Son of Man. Trans. Rachel Caffyn. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1988.
Rovira, José Carlos. “Sobre los orígenes del universo narrativo de Augusto Roa Bastos.” Anthropos: Revista de Documentation Científica de la Cultura 115 (1990): 28–35. Print.
Saad, Gabriel. “El árbol de la letra y el carnaval de la escritura”. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos: Revista Mensual de Cultura Hispánica 493–94 (1991): 145–52. Print.
Weldt-Basson, Helene. “Roa Bastos’s ‘Noche sin fin’ and ‘La tijera’: Two Versions of the Same Story.” Revista-de Filología y Lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica 28.1 (2002): 93–105. Print.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2010 Helene Carol Weldt-Basson
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nogueira, F.R., Groth, H. (2010). Rhizomatic Writing in Augusto Roa Bastos’s Short Stories. In: Weldt-Basson, H.C. (eds) Postmodernism’s Role in Latin American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107939_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107939_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-38061-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10793-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)