Narrative
Times Gone By: Memoirs of a Man of Action
Recuerdos del pasado
Vicente Pérez Rosales · 1882
Synopsis
Memoirs that cover, according to their subtitle, the years 1814 to 1860. The child sees the wars of independence go by and his family's exile in Mendoza; at fourteen, according to Rafael Sagredo, his mother puts him aboard an English ship at Valparaíso. He studies in Paris, returns, tries his hand at farming, mining and trade, smuggles livestock and goods across the mountain passes, then leaves for California in the time of the gold rush. As a colonisation agent in the south, he crosses Lake Llanquihue and climbs the Osorno in search of land, before leaving as consul to Hamburg.
Context
The text appeared serially in La Época from April to July 1882, then in book form the same year with a preface by Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna; a new edition, prepared by Luis Montt, came out in 1886, the year of the author's death. Alone saw in it the most Chilean of Chilean works; the historian Rafael Sagredo, who calls it an undisputed classic, questions how it became a national symbol, and Pablo Concha Ferreccio reads in it a justification of the racism of the colonisation of the south, according to Memoria Chilena. John Polt translated it into English in 2003.
Who it is for
Long memoirs in lively prose, to be read in episodes; translated into English, no French translation.
Prizes and reception
A classic of Chilean literature; Unamuno saw in it, the journal Meer reports, the best novel of the country.
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