Mecha Iturbe, published in Buenos Aires in 1906, is the most
ambitious and longest of Cesar Duayen's five novels about the
transformation of Argentina into a contemporary state in the early
part of the 20th century. Cesar Duayen, pseudonym of Emma de la
Barra (1861-1947), was the author of Argentina's best seller,
Stella of 1905, and Mecha Iturbe, too, was greeted with great
excitement. A record number of copies were printed, and the author
was paid an unprecedented amount. There were many editions, but
none has been available in recent years. In Mecha Iturbe, elements
of national reform and modernization are portrayed and debated in
an even more complicated failed love story, also set in both Buenos
Aires (drawing rooms, congress, the opera, a labor union rally) and
in a utopian factory town. The central character, Mecha Iturbe, has
just come from Europe so Argentina must be explained to her, and
shown to her. But Mecha, from whose point of view everything is
seen, is a very traditional Argentine-born woman who resists
modernization --she likes being an upper class, affluent, Catholic
conservative, she likes organizing charity balls and buying
fashionable new clothes-- and who has the misfortune to fall in
love with a reform-minded, idealistic medical doctor who expects
her to want to change and improve Argentina. The other major woman
character is a surgeon, who eventually marries an up and coming
politician and labor leader, but continues to practice medicine.
With a prologue and notes by Mary G. Berg, this novel would be a
discussion-provoking addition to any class on Argentine, Southern
Cone or Latin American 20th century history, women's studies, or
literature
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