El chulla Romero y Flores is a 1958 novel by the Ecuadorian writer

Jorge Icaza Jorge Icaza Coronel (July 10, 1906 – May 26, 1978), commonly referred to as Jorge Icaza, was a writer from Ecuador, best known for his novel '' Huasipungo'', which brought attention to the exploitation of Ecuador's indigenous people by Ecuadoria ...

(1906–1978). The book explores

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...

cultural identity. The protagonist Romero y Flores is conflicted between identifying with either his father's Spanish descent or his mother's Amerindian origins. He finds the tranquility he has been searching for once he attains a balance of identity. The book has been translated into many languages, including Czech, German, French, among others. The book has not yet been translated into English.

Criticism

While Icaza's 1934 novel '' Huasipungo'' (English trans: ''The Villagers'', 1964) is his most famous work, many literary experts, such as Theodore Alan Sackett in ''El arte en la novelística de Jorge Icaza'' (1974), have hailed ''El chulla Romero y Flores'' as his masterpiece.

Chulla meaning

A chulla is a middle class man or woman of mixed European and Amerindian descent who scorns his Amerindian side while exalting his European side. The chulla is obsessed with maintaining the appearance of status and social success. Considering "chulla" an

antonomasia In rhetoric, antonomasia is a kind of metonymy in which an epithet or phrase takes the place of a proper name, such as "the little corporal" for Napoleon I; or, conversely, the use of a proper name as an archetypal name, to express a generic idea. ...

of Ecuador, Claude Couffon titled his 1993 French translation "L'homme de Quito" (The Man from Quito). Chulla's origin comes from the

Quichua Kichwa (, , also Spanish ) is a Quechuan language that includes all Quechua varieties of Ecuador and Colombia (''Inga''), as well as extensions into Peru. It has an estimated half million speakers. The most widely spoken dialects are Chimborazo ...

language, where it means: Alone. Odd.

Film

''El chulla Romero y Flores'' was made into a TV movie in 1995 for Ecuavisa. It was filmed in Ecuador and directed by Carl West. The story takes place in 1950s Ecuador, and narrates the activities of the chulla Luis Alfonso Romero y Flores, his job as a bureaucrat, bohemian nights spent among friends, and his romance with Rosario Santacruz.CINEMATECA NACIONAL DEL ECUADOR - EL CHULLA ROMERO Y FLORES (in Spanish)
casadelacultura.gob.ec. Retrieved on 2016-05-08.

References

1958 novels Ecuadorian novels {{1950s-novel-stub