SOURCE: Moreiras, Alberto. “The End of Magical Realism: José María Arguedas's Passionate Signifier (El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo).” Journal of Narrative Technique 27, no. 1 (winter 1997): 84-112.

In the following essay, Moreiras declares that the death of the author in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo symbolizes the death of Magical Realism, and with it “Latin American foundational utopianism comes to its end.”

What would happiness be that is not measured by an immeasurable grief at what is?

(Adorno 200)

I. Transculturation: the Implosion of Meaning

There is an old Latin Americanist ideology which insistently affirms that the continent is a yet-to-be-realized historical project. Irlemar Chiampi has noted that this ideology is solidary with (she calls it “a residue of”) a certain “foundational Utopianism” which the early Spanish and Portuguese conquerors and other European settlers brought with them (133). Magical realism is very significantly...