Los perros del paraíso, by Abel Posse, and the dismantling of the historic imaginary

Abstract

The Latin American New Historical Novel, narrative subgenre developed during the later half of the XX century and identified by Seymour Menton in his text Latin American´s New Historical Novel 1979-1992, depicts in its most emblematic titles the intent of reconfiguring the official historical discourse appropiated by different autoritarian instances. Dogs of Paradise, an argentinian novel by author Abel Posse, places itself within this literary trend with the particular intention of achieving such reconfiguration by lunging against not only this official discourse, but against the imaginary forged by several falacies perpetuated in the public understanding of history. The novel aims to dismantle this imaginary through the use of its narrative subgenere’s characteristc tools: irony, parody, heteroglossia and the dissemination of time, and openes the possibility of reinterpretation of such imaginary, which in time allows for reflecting upon the historical identity of the american peoples.