Narrative and National Allegory in Romulo Gallegos Venezuela

Venezuela’s preeminent educator, politician, and most important author Rómulo Gallegos (1884-1969) left a lasting imprint on how Venezuelans conceive of their national history and identity. Jenni Lehtinen offers the first full-length study of Gallegos’s later Venezuelan novels, Canaima (1935), Pobre negro (1937), and Sobre la misma tierra (1943), which have been up to now eclipsed by the critical attention devoted to Doña Bárbara (1929). By combining close-readings organized around national allegory and narrative structure with discussions about Gallegos’s socio-political essays, the study reveals previously ignored, radical developments in the Venezuelan author’s ideologies. Through her bold reinterpretation of the later novels, Lehtinen reveals Gallegos as a far more innovative writer than has been traditionally appreciated.