Novel
En la sangre
Not translated into English
Eugenio Cambaceres · 1887
Opening lines
De cabeza grande, de facciones chatas, ganchuda la nariz, saliente el labio inferior, en la expresión aviesa de sus ojos chicos y sumidos, una capacidad de buitre se acusaba.
Large head, flat features, hooked nose, jutting lower lip: in the sly expression of his small, sunken eyes a vulture's greed showed itself.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from es.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Genaro Piazza, son of an Italian immigrant, grows up in a conventillo in Buenos Aires, amid avarice and poverty. After his father's death, he studies thanks to the inheritance. Eaten up with resentment towards his Creole classmates, he seeks to rise through deception and violence, according to Manuel Prendes Guardiola's entry, and seduces Máxima, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, to escape his money troubles.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial in the newspaper Sud-América in 1887, according to the province of Buenos Aires and the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. The author's fourth and last novel, it is, for Prendes Guardiola, the one most faithful to the principles of naturalism and the least controversial, despite the expectation that the press had created. It has been read as showing the view of the upper bourgeoisie on European immigration and on the social mobility of the period.
Who it is for
A novel in Spanish, published in a newspaper before appearing in volume form; no known French translation.
Prizes and reception
The most naturalist novel of its author and the least discussed on its publication, according to the notice of the Biblioteca Cervantes.
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