“El Entenado”, by Saer: a poetic perception of Hispanic American Conquest

Abstract

In “El Entenado” (2002), by Juan José Saer, a narrator of old age tells his story. Traveling in his youth as a grummet on a ship coasting the Plata River Basin, he witnessed the attack and massacre of the boat crew by local Indians. As the only survivor of the slaughter, he is adopted by the natives and lives among them without knowing the real reason for having been saved. From the viewpoint of the narrator, this novel tacitly promotes a discussion about the Hispanic conquest of the Americas that poetically builds his vision of the past without regard for historical precision. Nevertheless, while the historicity of the text becomes evident through the interlineations, its intrinsic poetry is the source of poetic prose, or poetic narrative, leading us to see traces of literary hybridism.