Jennifer L. French, “Nature, Neo-Colonialism, and the Spanish American Regional Writers” (Book Note)

 

Jennifer L. French, in her book, “Nature, Neo-Colonialism, and the Spanish American Regional Writers,” challenges established historiographical assumptions about post-Independence Latin America in her literary analysis of Quiroga Lynch, and Rivera. She puts forth a provocative claim that Britain, not the U.S., exerted the more pervasive neo-colonialist influence in Latin America from the latter part of Spanish colonialism through the aftermath of World War I. French argues that British economic incursions formed an "Invisible Empire," nearly hidden due to its informal nature, overshadowing analogies between Latin America and formal British colonies in India and Africa.

 

French asserts that British neo-colonialism transformed the post-Independence Latin American elite into middlemen, practicing "internal colonialism" over local resources to meet British market demands for beef, wool, timber, coffee, and rubber. While neo-colonialism is often overlooked in post-Independence Latin American discourse, French finds symbolic discussions in the literary treatment of nature. Drawing on Mary Louise Pratt's agrarian idyll reading, she fuses Marxism and environmental approaches to interpret the regional novel's obsession with land as a reflection of the neo-colonial material reality.

 

French compares the regional novelists' works with British colonial literature, examining how each author, despite being part of the creole elite, positions themselves in relation to external British neo-colonialism and internal creole complicity. However, French minimally addresses their internal colonialist tendencies, resolving textual ambiguities by portraying Quiroga as "fully antihegemonic," Lynch transcending the colonial class system, and Rivera enabling a non-exploitative relationship with the Colombian state. French interprets these authors as "environmentalists avant la lettre," advocating for anti-colonial and anti-capitalist politics.

 

While French suggests a green anti-globalization interpretation, she acknowledges the possibility of a conservative reading, portraying the regional novelists as desiring autonomous creole dominion to shake off the British yoke. Despite potential ambiguities, French's study fundamentally illuminates the post-Independence creole elite's ambivalence toward modernization and nostalgia for the Spanish colonial order, contributing to a deeper understanding of Latin America's place in post-colonial studies.