Aves sin nido

Por Clorinda Matto de Turner

Aves sin nido es la obra más destacada de Clorinda Matto, reconocida como la novela precursora del indigenismo, movimiento literario básicamente peruano. Aves sin nido es una denuncia —con una visión filantrópica, sentimental y compasiva— de las precarias condiciones de los indígenas.
En la primera parte de la novela el maltrato a la población indígena, la incompetencia de las autoridades y la corrupción de los curas, marcan el hilo narrativo de la historia.
Y en la segunda parte, la fuerza de lo novelesco, con tintes melodramáticos y folletinescos, se impone, pero sin abandonar la reivindicación social y la queja que subyacen en toda la novela.
«Si la historia es el espejo donde las generaciones por venir han de contemplar la imagen de las generaciones que fueron, la novela tiene que ser la fotografía que estereotipe los vicios y las virtudes de un pueblo, con la consiguiente moraleja correctiva para aquellos y el homenaje de admiración para estas.»
Proemio de Aves sin nido
Edición de Adriana López-Labourdette.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Linkgua ediciones
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 9 jul 2014
• ISBN: 9788490074565

Comentarios para Aves sin nido

[tadad_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Clorinda Matto de Turner was a well known Peruvian author at the end of the 19th century, and highly controversial for her stances on the rights of women and indigenous people. At a time and society in which a woman's place was considered to be the home, she became a journalist, editor and author: founding El Recreo de Cusco, a magazine featuring literary and education-related articles; editing several of Peru's major newspapers; and, eventually, becoming director of El Peru Ilustrado, one of the leading literary journals in South America. After her expulsion from Peru, she relocated to Buenos Aires, where she founded Búcaro Americano, a literary journal focused on promoting education for women.Torn from the Nest was Matto de Turner's first and most controversial of three novels, weaving together two story lines intended to outrage the establishment. The first was the plight of the native population. Their lot in 19th century Peru was little more than serfdom, including forced labor, outright robbery and casual rape...all with little fear of reprisal. Matto de Turner witnessed this first-hand upon moving to a small Andean town with her husband and loudly took up the cause.In the story Fernando and Lucía Marín, well-to-do investors from Lima, move to the town of Kíllac, where they behave with general benevolence. They are disturbed at some of the customs of the area regarding the Amerindians, such as advanced payments (where a buyer pays a tiny fee allowing him to demand a certain quantity of product from a farmer at a price later set solely by the buyer) and the heavy fees imposed by the Church to bury the dead. However, their feelings turn to horror when Lucía is approached for help by a mother—unless her husband can meet an advanced payment buyer's demands, her daughters will be taken and sold into brothels to recover the "debt". The Maríns' actions create an open and violent breach with the established powers of the town.The second thread of the story was equally infuriating to conservative readers of the day. Manuel, son of the local governor, and Margarita, daughter of two Andean peasants, fall in love with each other. Inter-racial/inter-class attachments were scandalous in upper-class Peruvian society, which considered non-whites as, by definition, savages.If those topics weren't enough, what ensured that this novel would provoke a storm was the author's choice of targets. Not only did she expose the government and judicial authorities responsible, but she included the Church in the list of culprits. The priests in the story are as tarred as the rest when it comes to murder, rape and robbery. Her refusal to exempt this untouchable sphere...even though she considered herself a good Catholic...is not surprising, given her literary philosophy. As she said in her preface, "...the task of the novel is to be a photograph..." or, in an article, "...we must faithfully present what we see that others may judge." The result was, perhaps, predictable. She was excommunicated by the Catholic Church, burned in effigy, her house and presses destroyed and, after a few years of refusing to recant, she was expelled from Peru by the military dictatorship.A highly-bowdlerized translation, Birds from the Nest, was produced in 1904 with Matto de Turner's ending replaced with one created by the translator. It was republished in 1995 as Birds Without a Nest with the missing pieces and the original ending restored by University of Texas Press. The present edition contains a new translation commissioned by Oxford University Press as part of their Library of Latin America.One final note—if you don't like spoilers, avoid the summary on the back of the book as it reveals the ending of the story to an unfortunate degree.