(English: ''Cumanda or A Drama Between Savages'') is a classic Ecuadorian novel by

Juan León Mera Juan León Mera Martínez (28 June 1832 – 13 December 1894) was an Ecuadorian essayist, novelist, politician and painter. His best-known works are the Ecuadorian National Hymn and the novel ''Cumandá'' (1879). Additionally, in his politica ...

. The novel was written in 1877. Juan León Mera sent the novel from Ambato, Ecuador to the Director of the

Royal Spanish Academy The Royal Spanish Academy ( es, Real Academia Española, generally abbreviated as RAE) is Spain's official royal institution with a mission to ensure the stability of the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, and is affiliated with ...

on March 10, 1877. He wanted the novel to be presented to the Academy as a show of gratitude for recently being appointed a member. In the letter he pointed out that although writers such as François-René de Chateaubriand and

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

had already written novels about savages in America, his was very different because it took place in the jungles of the Amazon whose natives had very different customs from those of North America, and of whom very little had been written about thus far.

English translation

''Cumanda'' was translated in 2007 by Noé O. Vaca as ''Cumanda: The Novel of the Ecuadorian Jungle''.

External links

''Cumanda: The Story of The Ecuadorian Jungle''
Spanish-language novels Ecuadorian novels 1877 novels {{1870s-novel-stub