By Christy McConnaughey
Students celebrated the Cultural Center’s semester-long focus on Hispanic culture this past Wednesday.
The program is the first of its kind at the University that focuses on Latin America.
Dr. Miguel-Angel Zapata, from the department of Romance Languages and Literature invited Roberto Gonzalez-Echevarria, chair in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, to speak at the lecture.
Gonzalez-Echevarria discussed his thoughts on famous Hispanic writers’ works of art in the Guthart Theatre.
He spoke about one of his favorite readings, The Novel after Cervantes: Borges and Carpentier and gave the history of the novel. Gonzalez-Echevarria’s thoughts provoked the audience to question Cervantes’ work as a writer.
“How has Cervantes been read and re-written by Latin Americans who cannot identify with Spanish obsessions about a Spanish essence while writing in Spanish?” Gonzalez-Echevarria said. “How can one read a classic in one’s own language without being involved in a process of cultural self-probing and nationalistic narcissism?”
Gonzalez-Echevarria does not believe Latin-American writers who do not understand Spanish culture or language can fully rewrite this classic novel. To him, they are misleading in their storytelling.
Gonzalez-Echevarria studied the influence of Cervantes in Latin American Literature, essentially in Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) and Alejo Carpentier (Cuba).
“I am interested in how the contemporary narrative tradition has rewritten Cervantes’ classic, focusing on its founding writers: Borges and Carpentier,” Gonzalez-Echevarria said.
Borges first read Cervantes in English and Carpentier read Cervantes’ work in French. Borges taught American writers how they were not part of the Spanish literary tradition, with the test case being the Quijote. According to Gonzalez-Echevarria, Pierre Menard, author of the Quijote was not even a Spanish speaker by birth or upbringing.
“This fact is crucial in Borges’ reading of Cervantes’ book. All these references to lies, we are now allowed to suspect, are allusions to Carpentier’s own lies about his life,” Gonzalez-Echevarria said.
Gonzalez-Echevarria’s points made Carpentier’s work sound questionable and dishonest to his audience. Yet Gonzales-Echevarria still admires Cervantes’ work indubitably.
“I respect Cervantes for his work,” said Gonzalez-Echevarria. “To me, his work is absolutely amazing.”
Gonzalez-Echevarria received his bachelors degree at the University of South Florida and his Ph.D. at Yale. In 1999, he was inducted into the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Besides Spanish, he also is fluent in English, French and Italian. Among many other achievements, he is currently a frequent contributor to the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.