THE NOVEL OF THE EARTH

The greatest successes of the Latin American novel occur in the regionalist and neorealist currents.
In the first decades of the 20th century, narrators were attracted, more than to the city, to the
singularity and the subjugating, often tragic, beauty of American nature.

The realist and naturalistic novels paid attention, in addition to man, to the environment and
nature that constituted their vital sphere.

In the NOVEL OF THE EARTH it may seem that man is not interesting only as such, but as he lives in
a natural world that, in more than one case, ends up becoming the true protagonist.

The fascination of the American land was nothing new: the chroniclers of the conquest themselves
had been subjugated by the landscape, and the spell is repeated in the novelists of the 20th
century.

In contact with the elements, the writer seems to find his most authentic vein, an inexhaustible
source of inspiration that gives him the possibility of creating a novel with unmistakable
characteristics.

Nature (pampa, virgin jungle, plain, mysterious or mighty rivers, endless desert full of suggestion
or kingdom of desolation) deeply attracts the writer and induces him to express his own emotions
in works that constitute the epic of the American continent.

THE EARTH AS A PROTAGONIST

In the works of these novelists the land of the different American latitudes pulsates, intense in its
spirituality as well as in its sensual violence, in the excess of the elements, beautiful even when it
is disturbing.

THE EARTH BECOMES THE MAIN PROTAGONIST, but it reflects in itself a humanity dominated by
primitive passions and, nevertheless, also rich in spiritual values, which is worth exploring.

The NOVEL OF THE EARTH has been highly cultivated by Latin American writers. It is called that
because nature, whether real or fantastic, is a living and breathing element within the narrative.

In this way, a new literature emerges that is for some critics the only truly original voice of
America, a genuine expression of a world that manages, through the complexity of its elements, to
attract the attention of a large reading public.

Earth novels

Origin

It has its origin in Latin America, at the time of the Discovery and the Conquest, when the letters
relating to those events focused almost all their attention on the physical environment, rather
than the human environment. Descriptive detail was lavished on the charms of the landscape, the
climatic conditions, the richness of the land. The Spanish, since their arrival in the New World,
insisted on wanting to possess it materially, without giving so much importance to the cultures of
the indigenous empires. That is why the inventory of nature became so relevant: jungles, cliffs,
plains, rivers. Since then, the land has frequently played a very important role in Latin American
literature. In the 19th century, many writers experienced an exalted romantic devotion to nature,
and tried to bring it to life in their stories and works.

The regionalist novel, which had produced works of Creole inspiration and social denunciation,
gave way to the so-called 'novels of the earth', which presented the confrontation between men
and the environment, their struggles and work to transform reality.

The earth novels were written for the 9th century.

Characteristics

These novels are characterized by having the earth (jungle, plains, lands) as the main character.
They are realistic and naturalistic.

Most important exponents

• Romulo Gallegos

(Caracas, August 1884 - Caracas, April 5, 1969), was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. He has
been considered the most relevant Venezuelan novelist of the 20th century and one of the
greatest Latin American writers of all time; some of his novels such as Doña Bárbara have become
classics of Latin American literature.

• Jose Eustacio Rivera

(Colombia; February 19, 1889 – New York, United States; December 1, 1928) was a Colombian
writer. He was the author of the naturalistic novel La vorágine (1924).

• Ricardo Guiraldes

(Buenos Aires, February 13, 1886 - Paris, October 8, 1927) was an Argentine novelist and poet.