Abstract

GERALDO CAMACHO, Diana Vanessa. In Search of a genre definition: Octavio Mancera’s spiritualist short stories. Lit. mex [online]. 2021, vol.32, n.1, pp.121-141.  Epub May 07, 2021. ISSN 2448-8216.  https://doi.org/10.19130/iifl.litmex.2021.1.26855.

This essay examines the genre of two short stories by the Mexican writer Octavio Mancera: “Caridad” and “Un crimen,” both published in Cuentos diáfanos (1897), his only collection of short narratives. Due to the multi-faceted character of this book, I chose to narrow my study to these texts which the author called fantastic tales. I question this genre placement arguing from their discursive narrative that, although termed fantastic, they belong more fittingly to magic realism because of their peculiar spiritist formulation. I propose the term spiritist realism as a new theoretical terminology for the study of these texts. In search of a definition, this article analyzes these two stories through an interpretative reading of the genre category to which they respond.

Keywords : Octavio Mancera: Fantastic tales; Magic realism; Literary genres; Spiritist realism; 19th-century literature.

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