Nightmares of the Lettered City: Banditry and Literature in Latin America, 1816-1929 » (1)

Juan Pablo Dabove is assistant professor and associate chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

An original study of the popular theme of banditry in works of literature, essays, poetry, and drama, from the early nineteenth century to the 1920s, and banditry's pivotal role during the conceptualization and formation of the Latin American nation-state. While focusing on four crucial countries (Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela), it is the first book to address the depiction of banditry in Latin America as a whole.

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Nightmares of the Lettered City     1
The Foundation of National Identities: The Bandit as Other
Banditry as the Non Plus Ultra   El periquillo sarniento     43
Banditry and the State as Nomadic War Machine   Facundo     54
Banditry and Allegories of Legitimation   El Chacho     74
Cangaceiros, Sacarocracy, and the Invention of a National Tradition   O Cabelleira     84
Banditry and Foundational Allegories for the Nation-State   El Zarco     99
Criminology: Banditry as the Wound of History     111
Between Conservative Nostalgia and Radical Politics: The Bandit as Instrument of Critique
Banditry and Insurgent Utopia   Astucia     129
Banditry, Nation, and the Experience of the Limits   Zarate     146
Banditry and the Frontiers of the Voice   Martin Fierro     165
The Gaucho Malo as Unpopular Hero   Juan Moreira     176
The Gaucho Outlaw and the Leviathan   Alma gaucha     190
Banditry, the Criminal State, and the Critique of Porfirian Illusions   Los bandidos de Rio Frio     199
The Triumph of the Nation State: The Bandit as Devious Brother and as Suppressed Origin
Original Banditry and the Crimes ofNations   Os sertoes     215
Bandit and Founding Father in the Epic of the Nation-State   La guerra gaucha     229
The Feast, the Bandit Gang, the Bola (Revolution and Its Metaphors)   Los de abajo     241
Banditry and the Necessary Gendarme (The Shadow of the Caudillo I)   Cesarismo democratico     261
Banditry and the Illusions of Modernity (The Shadow of the Caudillo II)   Dona Barbara     270
Conclusions: Representational Strategies and Paradigms     285
Notes     295
References     333
Index     371