Natalia Hernandez Somarriba

My research focuses on the themes of identity, race, and nation-building in film and literary narratives from Peru, Guatemala, and Argentina. 

The dissertation is structured in four chapters, and it is divided between two timespans, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I will focus on three territories, the countries now called Peru, Guatemala, and Argentina, by comparing two literary or cinematic works from each period and country per chapter. Firstly, I will look at the historical-political context of the region, and the main literary and cinematic traditions in relation to the primary works I am studying. Secondly, I will analyse the novels Los ríos profundos (1958) by José María Arguedas and Huaco Retrato (2021) by Gabriela Wiener (Peru). Secondly, I will compare the novel El tiempo principia en Xibalbá ([1972] 1985) by Guatemalan Maya Kaqchikel author Luis de Lión, with the fiction film La Llorona (2019) by Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala). In the fourth chapter, I will examine the film El ultimo malón (1918) by Alcides Greca with Las niñas del naranjel (2023) by Gabriela Cabezón Camara (Argentina).