RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Delgado, José Manuel Camacho
T1 Forty years since The relatives of Ester (1978), by Luis Fayad. From macondism to the new urban novel
JF Romanica Olomucensia
YR 2018
VO 30
IS 1
SP 43
OP 58
DO 10.5507/ro.2018.003
UL https://romanica.upol.cz/artkey/rom-201801-0003.php
AB The first forty years have passed since the publication of a novel as an important as Los parientes de Ester (The Relatives of Ester) (1978), by the Bogota-born writer Luis Fayad. The work was received with enthusiasm from its first edition, despite the fact that the novel was written a moment of exaltation about neo-baroque writing and the unanimous and almost hyperbolic acceptance of literary products derived from magical realism. Fayad conceived his novel as a stark portrait of a convulsed society in which the survival of the most disadvantaged social classes was very difficult. The methodology used in this article is clearly transversal and eclectic, as regards analysis with very diverse tools of the literary field, but it also takes into account sociological approaches that claim the central position of the modern city or social confrontation that occurs between traditional families and other social groups. The result of the essay is an overview of an important moment in Colombian (and Latin American) literature, when what has been termed Macondism gave way, step by step, to other forms of expression of reality. As a conclusion it is evident that The Relatives of Ester anticipated, at the time, the end of Macondism and the beginning of the new urban narrative.