MINING LITERATURE IN THE ANDES: MINERAL NARRATIVES FROM PERU, BOLIVIA AND CHILE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. by Juan Felipe Hernandez B.A., The University of Florida, 2009 M.A., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2012 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (HISPANIC STUDIES) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) January 2020 © Juan Felipe Hernandez, 2020 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Mining Literature in the Andes: Mineral Narratives from Peru, Bolivia and Chile in the Twentieth Century. submitted by Juan Felipe Hernandez in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies Examining Committee: Jon Beasley-Murray, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies. Supervisor Kim Beauchesne, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies. Supervisory Committee Member Gastón Gordillo, Professor of Anthropology. Supervisory Committee Member William French, Professor of History. University Examiner Philippe LeBillion, Professor of Geography. University Examiner ii Abstract This thesis examines twentieth-century Latin American novels that consider the figure of the miner, the mine and the role of the mineral in their plots. I focus on narrative and poetic texts from Bolivia, Chile and Peru to analyze the affect that the hyperobject global mining exerts over human and non-human bodies depicted in the narratives. One of the goals of this project is to call attention to a set of forces and processes previously ignored by critics, such as the impact of mining on spaces and individuals during long temporalities, or the intensity of the mineral and the metallic over larger social processes that have shaped modern Latin American History. Narratives such as En las tierras de Potosí (1911), by Jaime Mendoza, allow me to do so by highlighting the affective intensity arising from the relation between the body of the miner and the mineral. I employ interdisciplinary concepts such as the hyperobject, elaborated by literary critic Timothy Morton, and the assemblage and becoming, from French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, to better understand the interactive processes unleashed by the intensity of this contact. Using the framework of Affect Theory, I argue that the metallic mineral described in the Chilean gold-rush novel Llampo de sangre (1950) becomes a determinant that not only releases movement across geography but also lethal violence. Lastly, and as the discussion approaches the present, I discuss the mine as an absent center in the global chain of production and distribution represented in Peruvian novels of the late twentieth century. I argue that Peruvian mining literature allow us to identify lines of deterritorialization and escape as they materialize into lines of flight in the canonical texts of José María Arguedas’s Todas las sangres (1964) and Mario Vargas Llosa’s Lituma en los Andes (1993). iii Lay Summary This thesis analyzes twentieth-century Andean novels that explore the social and cultural impact of mineral extraction in Bolivia, Chile and Peru. This thesis fills a gap in the critical literature by examining works of fiction, and specifically mining narratives, that have been overlooked by critics. In addition, it argues for a more careful consideration of forces previously ignored, such as the role of long temporalities in mining camps, and the importance of the mineral and the metal over social processes that have determined Latin American history. iv Preface This dissertation is an original, unpublished and independent work conducted by Juan Felipe Hernandez. v Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................... iv Preface .............................................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... ix Dedication .......................................................................................................................................x Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.1 Literature Review ............................................................................................................ 6 1.2 Theoretical Choices ...................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 2: Mining Literature in Bolivia - Hyperobject, Affect and Becoming .....................27 2.1 Martín: Hyperobject and Becoming .............................................................................. 30 2.2 The Location of the Author ........................................................................................... 41 2.3 El oro negro and Affect ................................................................................................ 46 2.4 El oro negro and the Hyperobject ................................................................................. 54 2.5 Los eternos vagabundos: A Divided Text .................................................................... 57 2.6 Affect and Becoming in Los eternos vagabundos Section ........................................... 61 2.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 3: New Voices and Strategies in Bolivian Mining Literature ...................................69 3.1 Beyond Miner and Mine ............................................................................................... 74 3.2 Denouncing Patiñismo: Disfiguring at the Margins in Metal del diablo ...................... 77 vi 3.3 Women and peasants in Socavones de angustia ........................................................... 90 3.4 El precio del estaño or Chronicling a Double Failure ................................................ 104 3.5 Rhetoric of Power: Discourse and Counterdiscourse ................................................. 108 3.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 119 Chapter 4: Metallic Encounters in Chile .................................................................................123 4.1 Multitude in Hijo del salitre ....................................................................................... 127 4.2 Encounters in the Desert ............................................................................................. 129 4.3 Assemblages of Resistance ......................................................................................... 134 4.4 Continuous .................................................................................................................. 139 4.5 Llampo de sangre or the Affects of Gold ................................................................... 143 4.6 Gold, Ghosts, and Indians ........................................................................................... 145 4.7 Phenomenology of Gold ............................................................................................. 148 4.8 Edward versus Don Pascual ........................................................................................ 151 4.9 Becoming a “Real” Miner ........................................................................................... 156 4.10 Pablo Neruda and the Poetics of the Subterranean Vein ............................................ 159 4.11 Encountering Shock and Crisis ................................................................................... 161 4.12 Multiple Narrators ....................................................................................................... 167 4.13 The Poem as an Assemblage ....................................................................................... 170 4.14 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 173 Chapter 5: The Mine as Absent Center in Global Accumulation .........................................175 5.1 Todas las sangres: Where is the Mine? ...................................................................... 177 5.2 Accumulation by War or Apocalypse ......................................................................... 182 5.3 A Running Thread of Mineral ..................................................................................... 192 vii 5.4 Redoble por Rancas or the Chronicle of a Line of Flight ........................................... 199 5.5 Is Fiction Only Fiction? .............................................................................................. 202 5.6 The Magic of Accumulation