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Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land
The first-ever English translation of one of the legends of the Latin American left
Rafael Barrett was born into the Spanish elite, but in the six intense years that he spent in Paraguay, he shed his past to become one of the most notable voices speaking out against the rampant imperialism gripping Latin America. Arriving in a nation constructed upon a foundation of bones following the Triple Alliance War of 1864-1870, Barrett was thrown by chance into the “Paraguayan sorrow” that haunted that landlocked nation in the heart of Latin America. More than half the population had been wiped out in the merciless conflict. A ferocious pattern of capitalist imperialism had taken hold. The apocalyptic war had ended a period of relative economic independence, and―as competing elites allied with foreign interests squabbled over rulership―Paraguay’s poor workers entered a long descent into utter degradation. All that Barrett witnessed prompted him to discard the vestiges of his past as an upper-class liberal dandy in Madrid, shifting his politics rapidly to the left and becoming a key ally of the growing Paraguayan anarcho-syndicalist movement.
As skirmishes between Paraguay’s national elites pushed the country from one military uprising to the next, Barrett’s prolific articles in the capital city’s press broke the silence on deep social, economic, and political problems playing out in urban and rural areas. Barrett transformed into one of Paraguay’s most vivid commentators, denouncing private property and the state, and one of the most vocal defenders of the heavily marginalized culture, language, and landscapes of the Paraguayan popular classes. He paid the ultimate price for his metamorphosis, ultimately facing banishment from the nation’s intelligentsia, poverty, exile, and a tuberculosis infection that would soon end his life.
Despite Barrett’s position as a legendary figure in Paraguayan, Uruguayan, and Argentinian leftist circles, especially among anarchists, his work has endured long periods of relative obscurity since his death. Among Barrett’s wide-ranging texts, he is often remembered for a brave exposé of the horrors committed against Paraguayan workers by powerful international companies that extracted the leaf of the yerba mate tree from the depths of enormous enclaves of forest they controlled. Barrett’s attack on this state-backed system of debt slavery would position him as a forerunner of anti-neocolonial writing in Latin America. This edition of his striking book Paraguayan Sorrow (1911), which includes his writing on the yerba mate forests, forms part of a wave of renewed interest in a striking body of writing covering an enormous number of disciplines and geographical regions. With its vivid landscapes, precise analysis, and bold denouncements, this first-ever English translation of Paraguayan Sorrow brings us a relevant and inspiring resource for the analysis of imperialism in Paraguay, Latin America, and across the globe.
Rafael Barrett was born into the Spanish elite, but in the six intense years that he spent in Paraguay, he shed his past to become one of the most notable voices speaking out against the rampant imperialism gripping Latin America. Arriving in a nation constructed upon a foundation of bones following the Triple Alliance War of 1864-1870, Barrett was thrown by chance into the “Paraguayan sorrow” that haunted that landlocked nation in the heart of Latin America. More than half the population had been wiped out in the merciless conflict. A ferocious pattern of capitalist imperialism had taken hold. The apocalyptic war had ended a period of relative economic independence, and―as competing elites allied with foreign interests squabbled over rulership―Paraguay’s poor workers entered a long descent into utter degradation. All that Barrett witnessed prompted him to discard the vestiges of his past as an upper-class liberal dandy in Madrid, shifting his politics rapidly to the left and becoming a key ally of the growing Paraguayan anarcho-syndicalist movement.
As skirmishes between Paraguay’s national elites pushed the country from one military uprising to the next, Barrett’s prolific articles in the capital city’s press broke the silence on deep social, economic, and political problems playing out in urban and rural areas. Barrett transformed into one of Paraguay’s most vivid commentators, denouncing private property and the state, and one of the most vocal defenders of the heavily marginalized culture, language, and landscapes of the Paraguayan popular classes. He paid the ultimate price for his metamorphosis, ultimately facing banishment from the nation’s intelligentsia, poverty, exile, and a tuberculosis infection that would soon end his life.
Despite Barrett’s position as a legendary figure in Paraguayan, Uruguayan, and Argentinian leftist circles, especially among anarchists, his work has endured long periods of relative obscurity since his death. Among Barrett’s wide-ranging texts, he is often remembered for a brave exposé of the horrors committed against Paraguayan workers by powerful international companies that extracted the leaf of the yerba mate tree from the depths of enormous enclaves of forest they controlled. Barrett’s attack on this state-backed system of debt slavery would position him as a forerunner of anti-neocolonial writing in Latin America. This edition of his striking book Paraguayan Sorrow (1911), which includes his writing on the yerba mate forests, forms part of a wave of renewed interest in a striking body of writing covering an enormous number of disciplines and geographical regions. With its vivid landscapes, precise analysis, and bold denouncements, this first-ever English translation of Paraguayan Sorrow brings us a relevant and inspiring resource for the analysis of imperialism in Paraguay, Latin America, and across the globe.
240 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2024
About the author
Rafael Barrett
90 books5 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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October 1, 2024
Amazing book: an illuminating, highly satisfying read. A deep, sober and generous window into Paraguay's history, and many of its themes - social justice, politics, human relations with nature - feel widely and globally relevant. Very good translation, too (hardly noticeable you are not reading it in the original language), and a very broad and informative introduction.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review