Confluences of America and Europe in the modern hybrid genre: H. C. Buchs Rede des toten Kolumbus am Tag des jüngsten Gerichts (1992)

Abstract

The present article seeks to analyze the influence that contemporary methods of literary writing and modes of thought used on the American continent have had on other literary niches, having as a specific example, Germany. For that, the focus will fall on the German historical novel Rede des toten Kolumbus am Tag des jüngsten Gerichts (1992), from the author Hans Christoph Buch. In the novel, it is observed how the rhetorical and aesthetical processes of narrative come close to what was considered as "new metafictional historical novel", according to studies by Aínsa (1988-1991), Menton (1993) and Fleck (2007). This model of artistic production is a result of the literary boom suffered in Latin America, amidst the 20th century, thus showing how, after a long time, the Americas start to influence the writings of other continents and, specially, Europe. Studies by Lukács, regarding historical novels, and Uslar Pietri (1990), regarding "Magic Realism", also make themselves useful, once that the delimitations of the literary genre, as well as its main characteristics, are possible of being observed in Buch's novel.