José Gamarra situates his story in the beginning; when the continent was jungle and the urban universe had not yet made an irruption. Gamarra situates his narration in the enormous and aesthetic dimension of the jungle; a figure that since the Discovery of America became in the western imaginary the identifying feature of the continent: it is the American landscape par excellence. It exalts its disturbing and mysterious majesty, and contrasts it with the modernity that appears in the form of industrial artifacts (helicopters, television) reflecting the tragic manner of the arrival of modernity to the continent. The characters of European factions, in which we recognize historical figures that burst with their smallness in the disturbing immensity, misplaced, as intruders are seen when they break in where they are not wanted. Inexplicable presence in those places that translates the tension that inhabits Latin America between archaism and modernity and the tragic and violent way in which it arrived to those places.
The narrative of history in Gamarra implicitly carries a reading that highlights the effects caused by the European irruption in America that have as a scenario the jungle that, in spite of the violence of the aggressions coming from abroad, does not seem to be moved and rather observes the intruders with a malicious attitude. A reading that assumes a political stance without imposing this vision on the aesthetic value of his work because, above all, what prevails in Gamarra is the malicious tenderness of his gaze and his playful capacity.
Elisabeth Burgos, 2014
Translated into English
