Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Comparative Literature

Supervisor

Dr. Calin-Andrei Michailescu

Abstract

This thesis examines the idea of Colombian history as ‘random coincidence’ in Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad and El otoño del patriarca. Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History and Michel Foucault’s Nietzsche, Genealogy, History provide the theoretical framework for the research. This thesis examines magic realism as a way of representing the true invisible past of Latin America. The combination of Foucault’s concept of genealogy, Walter Benjamin’s ‘messianic historical materialism’ and García Márquez’s ‘magic realism’ demonstrates that the combination of living and telling produce a Jetztzeit of believability that redeems Latin American history from historicism. By transforming Latin American History into a series of temporal tears, random events and contradictions, CAS and OdP define true History as something that happens behind the scenes of power.

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