Houses of Horror or Magical Kingdoms? Past Times Revisited with Miguel Ángel Asturias, Carlos Fuentes and Julio Cortázar

Abstract

In the three short stories to be examined, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Carlos Fuentes and Julio Cortázar incorporate Pre-Columbian beliefs and customs into colonial and post-colonial Latin American reality. Their fictional mergers of past and present insinuate the reversibility/ambiguity of dreams/representation with physical reality. They thus recognize the authentic presence of Pre-Columbian culture in contemporary Latin American societies and put into question the validity of European/North American materialism.