Huasipungo: Jorge Icaza. Dennis Dobson, 15/-.
Broad and Alien is the World: Giro Alegria. Merlin Press, 18/-.
In the nineteenth century, the Spanish American novel was realist, often concerned with the explosive social problems of the continent. The Modernist movement of ’98 largely diverted this absorption with human problems into a concern with form and style which has lasted well into the present century. The flow of novels charged with consciousness of oppression and injustice has been little more than a trickle, dammed by indirect political and social censorship. However, of the small group of writers who have produced work of distinction both as literature and as protest, both Icaza and Alegria are important and illuminating. Both are Andean nevolists, and both are deeply moved by the condition of the highland Indians; the subject peasantry, utterly excluded from the national life of their countries.