Herencia (1895) set in the city of Lima during the last decades of
the XIX Century, is the third deliberately controversial novel
written by Clorinda Matto de Turner (Peru, 1852-1909), well known
by then for her novels, Aves sin nido (1889) and Indole (1891),
which take place in rural Andean Peru. An experienced writer of
essays, historical fiction and biographies, Clorinda Matto had a
sociologist's sharply observant eye, but by 1895, when she
published Herencia, Clorinda Matto's days as an aggressive
journalist in Lima were numbered. Only a few months later, she fled
into exile in Argentina and never returned to Peru. Herencia, an
analysis of class and gender in Lima, told through the stories of
six women's interwoven lives, can be read as Matto's
no-holds-barred expos of what she really thought of Lima society of
the late 1880s, a society in the throes of major changes. In the
aftermath of the disastrous War of the Pacific (1879-83), Peru's
ruling classes struggled to regain and retain their social and
political power, but they were challenged by many new
circumstances. A flood of modern ideas and commercial products, as
well as new immigrants, forced changes, and Lima evolved rapidly,
despite resistance. In a world of new department stores, economic
possibilities, trains, sewing machines and modern mores, Matto's
women characters struggle to define their lives as they succeed or
fail in this society in flux. Matto was fascinated by the new
sciences of eugenics and evolution, and the central issues of the
novel are related to unresolved debates about the relative
importance of Nature (genes, biological inheritance) vs. Nurture
(education, environment). Considered shocking and even pornographic
at the time, because of its depiction of women's sexuality,
Herencia remains a vivid analysis of upper, bourgeois, and lower
class women's lives in Lima at a time of unprecedented dramatic
social changes. This novel, extensively annotated, with an
introduction and bibliography by Mary G. Berg, would be a lively
addition to courses on 19th century Latin America, 19th century
Women's History, the rise of mercantilism and commerce, a history
of women journalists, or an Upstairs/Downstairs approach to the
analysis of history and society.
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