"An erotic, anarchic and Galician poet of the grotesque." -Michael Billington, Guardian The first great twentieth-century novel of dictatorship, and the avowed inspiration for Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch and Roa Bastos's I, the Supreme, Tyrant Banderas is a dark and dazzling portrayal of a mythical Latin American Republic in the grip of a monster. Valle-Inclan, one of the masters of Spanish modernism, combines the splintered points of view of a cubist painting with the campy excesses of 19thcentury serial fiction to paint an astonishing picture of a ruthless tyrant facing armed revolt. It is the Day of the Dead, and revolution has broken out, creating mayhem from Baby Roach's Cathouse to the Harris Circus to the deep jungle of Tico Maipu. The tyrant steps forth, assuring all that he is in favor of freedom of assembly and democratic opposition.
"Ramon del Valle-Inclan, the most pioneering Spanish dramatist of this century . . . anticipates most of the key movements in modern drama. He is notoriously unclassifiable but was both and Expressionist and an Absurdist before the event. He created a genre he called 'esperpento' which broadly means grotesque tragic-comedy, and what is fascinating is that he anticipates Beckett, Ionesco, Genet and Arrabal without in any way sacrificing his own radical utopianism. He is one of the seminal figures in modern drama: erotic, anarchic and Galician poet of the grotesque." --Michael Billington, "Guardian"
" "
"Because dictators have been a staple of Latin history, they're a staple of the Latin novel. Spaniard Ramon del Valle-Inclan broke ground in 1926 with "Tirano Banderas."" --"The Miami Herald"
" "
"The radical innovation in the theater that came after World War I is known here mainly through the plays of Brecht. In Spain, the prophet of this new movement was Ramon del Valle-Inclan. . . . Written in 1920, 'Divinas Palabras' actually precedes Brecht's agitprop dramas." --"The New York Times"
" "
"It is a dark, violent, gorey work whose unbridled lyricism cannot mask its many horrors. . . . "Tirano Banderas," which Valle Inclan wrote in his 20s, is Cubist in that its writing is highly fragmented, while its range of deep, intense colours is reminiscent of Goya. But its main characteristic is esperpento, a genre created by Ville-Inclan himself. Esperpento is a mixture of terror and comedy, in which a character from tragedy is reduced to the dimensions of a fairground huckster. "Tirano Banderas "is a farce written with a poisoned pen." --"Manchester Guardian Weekly"
""Tirano Banderas" was the first novel to describe a South American dictator. It was written before other authors, such as Asturias and Garcia Marquez. . . . All the horrible things describe in the novel are still a very real threat in present day Latin America." --Lautaro Murua, Arge
Title: Tyrant Banderas
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Ramon Del Valle-Inclan
;
Introduction by
Alberto Manguel
;
Translated by
Peter Bush
ISBN 13: 9781590174982
ISBN 10: 1590174984
Publisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc
Imprint: New York Review of Books Classics
Publication Date: 15/05/2012
Place of Publication:
New York,
United States
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
General & literary fiction
;
Classic fiction
Dewey Classification:
863.62
(DC23)
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Height: 198mm
Width: 122mm
Thickness: 12mm
Weight: 236g