Multilingualism and the Indigenous Novel: Paths of Comparatism Inscribed in Aqupampa by Pablo Landeo Muñoz

Abstract

Abstract:Aqupampa (Desert Sands, 2016) by Pablo Landeo Muñoz is the first novel published in Quechua and the first novel in a Latin American Indigenous language published monolingually––and the author insists on in never to be translated into Spanish. This article focuses primarily on two its aspects: literary genre and multilingualism. It posits Aqupampa as an opening of a field of intertextuality and comparison, inviting a transformation of current comparative frameworks. This analysis builds on the reflection on how translation has played a central role in theories of postcolonial, decolonial, and world literature. Since translation is an asymmetric practice, its asymmetry seeps into literary categorizations and analysis. This study proposes to rethink these frameworks through the lens of multilingualism constructed from the perspective of an Indigenous language. It is an impulse to rethink literary circulation, putting in question the centrality of impact within the literary and cultural sphere, and insisting on values other than vast readership. Aqupampa allows us to conceptualize the participation in world literature of texts that do not travel easily but have different (dis)locations inscribed in their linguistic and genre structures.