Realismo psíquico en una novela inédita de Gamaliel Churata

The thesis, divided into three parts, seeks to bring readers and literary critics closer to the work of an author of fundamental importance for understanding the thought of the South American Andean region. The main objective is to write an introductory study to accompany the critical edition of the unpublished novel Limeños de la sierra Metafísica del tiempo (1969). After introducing Gamaliel Churata, the text first sets out the main critical context surrounding his writing, determining that, despite the existence of deep, broad and competent readings of his books (Aramayo 1979, Badini 1991, Bosshard 2007, Monasterios 2015, et al.), there are still gaps in interpretation, with particular attention to the last phase of his literary production between 1957 (after the publication of El pez de oro) until 1969. It is precisely in this period that Churata sets out and deepens his linguistic, philosophical and ontological proposal that he himself calls psychic realism (González 2009). It was also during this period that he wrote the novel Limeños de la sierra Metafísica del tiempo, still unpublished. Precisely to enter into a detailed reading of this new realism, in the first chapter entitled “The Philosopher of the Earth,” I propose Churata as an innovator of humanistic practices based on the knowledge of nature and its possible laws. This occurs from his literary work in stories such as El gamonal (1927) where the land is treated from an economic and social point of view –Marxist, we could say–; the same one he adopted in his work as a surveyor in the highlands before his exile in La Paz, Bolivia, where he lived for more than thirty years. The proposal of a philosophy of the earth is in turn based also on a theoretical framework defined in Aymara as Yanak Uywaña, by Elvira Espejo Ayca, which could be translated as “Mutual breeding of knowledge and arts,” in which a de-hierarchization between the human being and his environment is practiced (plants, animals and raw materials of the work of art, such as wool in the fabric). To complete this approach, I rely on the work Churata did in support of the Bolivian Agrarian Reform of 1953, little known until now. After analyzing his epistemological contributions, it is highlighted how the Aymara and Quechua civilizations had a strong influence on Churata's thought, along with Bolivian social phenomena, together with concepts such as jata, ajayu watan and hallpa kamaska, necessary to understand his main works. The second chapter of the thesis focuses on the interpretation and questioning of the concept of "dialectic of psychic realism." Therefore, always following the premises raised by Churata, I will focus on three passages of dialectical history. In this triad of passages that have influenced global thought, I conduct a brief dialogue between specific dialectical passages (Plato, Hegel, and Marx) with Churata, in order to analyze the relevance, scope, or possible paradigmatic changes in the work of the author of Resurrección de los muertos (2010). After establishing what psychic realism consists of, the third chapter finally focuses on the interpretation of the novel Limeños de la sierra Metafísica del tiempo from this new epistemological lens, to offer a careful and commented philological edition. In Limeños de la sierra, the ontological principles of ajayu watan and jata, among others, operate like nowhere else in Gamaliel Churata's narrative. This leads me to suggest that the novel is equivalent, in its narrative, to an aesthetic manifesto, as has happened many times in the history of art, when a philosophical and/or aesthetic movement (surrealism, psychologism, existentialism, etc.) is presented through a specific work. The novel functions as a kind of staging to propose a different vision of reality based on this first reading.