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El Dolor Paraguayo
Selección de textos de Rafael Barrett, "descubridor de la realidad social paraguaya" como lo caracterizó Augusto Roa Bastos, quien prologó el libro.
Más que un predicador político o un moralista práctico que predicó con su acción y con su obra, fue un rebelde visionario, un obrero infatigable de ese afán redencionista que marcó su alma a fuego y la volvió incandescente: uno de esos "espíritus dehiscentes como semillas" , abierto al futuro en una obra en la que no hay nada que adivinar y sí todo por aprender. "Es por la obra que nos ponemos en contacto con la esfinge - dijo el propio Barrett-. No es seguramente como espectadores que descifraremos el enigma de la realidad, sino como actores."
Y también: "El mayor problema filosófico es reconciliar nos con la muerte, y quizás lo resolvamos mediante la obra. No se comunica sino lo que es común a todos. No somos los dueños sino los depositarios de la vida. Por eso el amor es una deuda, y está hecho de sacrificio. No nos entregamos solamente, sino que nos devolvemos."
Tal fue la persuasión más profunda, la actitud, la actividad y el legado de Rafael Barrett...
Más que un predicador político o un moralista práctico que predicó con su acción y con su obra, fue un rebelde visionario, un obrero infatigable de ese afán redencionista que marcó su alma a fuego y la volvió incandescente: uno de esos "espíritus dehiscentes como semillas" , abierto al futuro en una obra en la que no hay nada que adivinar y sí todo por aprender. "Es por la obra que nos ponemos en contacto con la esfinge - dijo el propio Barrett-. No es seguramente como espectadores que descifraremos el enigma de la realidad, sino como actores."
Y también: "El mayor problema filosófico es reconciliar nos con la muerte, y quizás lo resolvamos mediante la obra. No se comunica sino lo que es común a todos. No somos los dueños sino los depositarios de la vida. Por eso el amor es una deuda, y está hecho de sacrificio. No nos entregamos solamente, sino que nos devolvemos."
Tal fue la persuasión más profunda, la actitud, la actividad y el legado de Rafael Barrett...
229 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Rafael Barrett
87 books3 followersRafael Barrett was born in Torrelavega, Santander, Spain, on January 10th 1876. Coming from an aristocratic family, in 1903 he came to Buenos Aires where he worked as a journalist, leaving behind the life of privileges offered in Europe. In 1904 he traveled to Paraguay as correspondent of “El Tiempo” magazine. In time, he would adopted this country as his own. Both his professions journalism and surveying helped him to know about the Paraguayan reality. Persecuted by his continuous public complaints about the slavery conditions of workers in the fields and the violent actions of the government , he was imprisoned, tortured and deported to Montevideo, Uruguay in 1908. A desperate attempt to save his life, made him travel to France, where he finally died of pulmonary tuberculosis, on September 10th 1910.
Among his most paradigmatic works, we can find Moralidades actuales (1910), Lo que son los yerbales (1910) y El dolor paraguayo (1911). His only fiction, Cuentos breves, was originally edited in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1911.
“It would be appropriate to put Rafael Barrett in the intersection of the coordinates that put together the left-wing of the Spanish generation of 1898 – with Pío Barroja as a prominent figure – and the great immigration of the last years of the 19th century.
Son of an English man and a Madrilenian aristocrat woman, although he was born in Santander, his entire literary works are closely related to the south-american problematics: Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Urugay are the settings of his explicit anarchist journalism. El dolor paraguyo (The Paraguayan grief) and El terror argentino (The Argentinian terror) represent the cultural thought opposite to the official that was being published in relation to many of the independencies centenaries that were celebrated in the years close to 1910.
In a tangential, rather superficial way is possible to read some influences of Modernismo coming from the prestige of Ruben Darío in the first decade of the 20th century, especially in his short stories and tales.
Yet, only his political articles and reports are the ones that preserve the soundness and validity characteristic of his journalism. Above everything, Lo que son los yerbales is the work that the latest critics have seen as the most remarkable antecedent of Horacio Quiroga writings, as well as Alfredo Varela’s El río oscuro (The dark river).”
David Viñas
“Now that we are talking about literary issues, I ask you whether you know a writer Rafael Barrett, such a free and courageous spirit. With tears in my eyes and on my knees, whenever you have some money, I beg you to go to Mendesky’s or any other bookshop and ask the store clerk for a copy of Mirando vivir. That is a remarkable book which has comforted me from the fussiness of Giusti, Soiza Reilly and of my cousin Alvarito Melían Lafinur”
Jorge Luis Borges
“To bring his works to light and to spread them is not only a rescue task of one of the most splendid and provocative things written in Paraguay, but also a contribution to rethinking both social and cultural basic issues of Latin-american people, altogether from the unavoidable point of view offered by this great writer.”
Augusto Roa Bastos
“Barrett was among us only for six years. In this short period of time, he managed to be a revolutionary figure, to write a dozen of books as well as to establish a literary style and an ethic. He died in 1910, at the age of 34, the age which founds many other writers in the beginning of their own careers thinking what are they going to do with their lifes”
Abelardo Castillo
Among his most paradigmatic works, we can find Moralidades actuales (1910), Lo que son los yerbales (1910) y El dolor paraguayo (1911). His only fiction, Cuentos breves, was originally edited in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1911.
“It would be appropriate to put Rafael Barrett in the intersection of the coordinates that put together the left-wing of the Spanish generation of 1898 – with Pío Barroja as a prominent figure – and the great immigration of the last years of the 19th century.
Son of an English man and a Madrilenian aristocrat woman, although he was born in Santander, his entire literary works are closely related to the south-american problematics: Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Urugay are the settings of his explicit anarchist journalism. El dolor paraguyo (The Paraguayan grief) and El terror argentino (The Argentinian terror) represent the cultural thought opposite to the official that was being published in relation to many of the independencies centenaries that were celebrated in the years close to 1910.
In a tangential, rather superficial way is possible to read some influences of Modernismo coming from the prestige of Ruben Darío in the first decade of the 20th century, especially in his short stories and tales.
Yet, only his political articles and reports are the ones that preserve the soundness and validity characteristic of his journalism. Above everything, Lo que son los yerbales is the work that the latest critics have seen as the most remarkable antecedent of Horacio Quiroga writings, as well as Alfredo Varela’s El río oscuro (The dark river).”
David Viñas
“Now that we are talking about literary issues, I ask you whether you know a writer Rafael Barrett, such a free and courageous spirit. With tears in my eyes and on my knees, whenever you have some money, I beg you to go to Mendesky’s or any other bookshop and ask the store clerk for a copy of Mirando vivir. That is a remarkable book which has comforted me from the fussiness of Giusti, Soiza Reilly and of my cousin Alvarito Melían Lafinur”
Jorge Luis Borges
“To bring his works to light and to spread them is not only a rescue task of one of the most splendid and provocative things written in Paraguay, but also a contribution to rethinking both social and cultural basic issues of Latin-american people, altogether from the unavoidable point of view offered by this great writer.”
Augusto Roa Bastos
“Barrett was among us only for six years. In this short period of time, he managed to be a revolutionary figure, to write a dozen of books as well as to establish a literary style and an ethic. He died in 1910, at the age of 34, the age which founds many other writers in the beginning of their own careers thinking what are they going to do with their lifes”
Abelardo Castillo
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 11, 2023
El primer tuitero paraguayo me deprimió con sus afectaciones (es un pesado) e iluminó con sus crónicas y observaciones (narra el Paraguay muy bien). El ensayo de Augusto Roa Bastos, al inicio, es 10/10. La colección es medio desorganizada y repetitiva pero ARB es buen tipo y sabe como santificarla mencionando ésta y otras fallas y limitaciones como razones para seguir construyendo encima del legado de Barret. A quiénes habrá persuadido? Así me dispongo a seguir leyendo.
July 11, 2014
Re-lectura y no sé por qué le puse 4 inicialmente. Este libro es un tesoro.
June 29, 2020
Obligatorio como necesario.
September 23, 2021
Importante e influyente texto en la literatura y el pensamiento social paraguayo, y además un placer de lectura. Vale la pena leerlo incluso sólo por el genial prólogo de Roa Bastos.
January 8, 2022
uno de los mejores libros que leí en mi vida, increíble como tantos problemas que tenía el Paraguay hace más de 100 años los sigue teniendo hoy
April 13, 2017
El Dolor Paraguayo es una colección de impresiones de Barrett, respecto de la realidad social de inicios del siglo pasado. El valor de sus escritos se encuentra dado por el testimonio que ofrece, una denuncia de las condiciones del Paraguay de posguerra, sumido en la pobreza, la explotación y el desgobierno.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews