Bronze Race

With Raza de bronce (Bronze Race) (1919), Alcides Arguedas initiated the literary current called «Indigenismo» which portrays the social, political, economic and cultural reality of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
The author’s intention is to capture the dilemma and confrontation of identities and societies characterized by cultural heterogeneity. With a background of obvious social denunciation, Raza de bronce is one of the first Latin American novels that narrates the life of the indigenous people of the Bolivian Altiplano.
The prominent Hispanist Ernest Martinenche, professor of the Sorbonne, tells us about Bronze Race: «The guys who live or vegetate on this land, already fertile, already ungrateful, seem painted with no less justice: little by little we enter their miserable abodes, in their superstitions. The facts alone speak in their impassive language, more exasperating than the most violent protests».