El Brasil imperial y la obra de un condenado a muerte: "Inconfidencia" ("El Aleijadinho") de Abelardo Arias

Abstract

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This paper analyzes Inconfidencia (El Aleijadinho) (1979) by Abelardo Arias, a historical novel in which the awardwinner Argentine writer recreates the life of the mestizo sculptor Antonio Francisco Lisboa, genius of sculpture more widely known by his nickname: “the Aleijadinho” and by his magnificent sculptures that recreate the Passion of Christ and twelve Prophets, in Ouro Preto, Brazil. Arias he chooses the mulatto and leper sculptor, who lived in times of the Imperial Brazil and of the revolt of the “Unconfidants” –a group of intellectuals who for the first time tried to liberate their country from the Portuguese yoke– as a synthesis of the American man and of his continuous debate to reach the longed for cultural identity. Principally, three axes of the novel are emphasized: the correspondence art-religion and the relation with the author’s poetics; the revolt of the Unconfidants like a mirror of the pursuit of the intellectual Argentinians during the last military dictatorship and, finally, the baroque microuniverse of Imperial Brazil like a symbol of the complex Latin-American identity. 

Keywords

Abelardo Arias, Inconfidencia, Aleijadinho, Historical novel, American Hibridity