The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the narrative works of Alejo Carpentier and Abel Posse within the context of the new Latin American historical novel that revises the Old World-New World Encounter. Focusing on El arpa y la sombra and Los perros del paraíso, the dissertation studied the particular manner in which Latin American novelists, and particularly Alejo Carpentier and Abel Posse, approach and question traditional historiography. The research also compared different novels to identify various trends within the new historical novel that rewrites the foundational period of Latin American literature. This study considered the theories of the new historical novel as proposed by critics such as Seymour Menton, Fernando de Aínsa, Linda Hutcheon, and Brian MacHale. The new novel was examined within the frameworks of postmodern literary and historiographic theories. The study also contemplated the philosophical views that have influenced postmodern thought, and, especially, the ideas of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Lyotard, Harbermas, and Foucault. Research showed two major trends within the new Latin American historical novel. In the case of the first trend, initiated by Alejo Carpentier in 1949 with El reino de este mundo, the novelist’s approach is founded on historicism and factual rigor. The second trend, initiated by Reinaldo Arenas with El mundo alucinante in 1969, is marked by irreverence, parody, irony, and carnavalization. Characterized by intertextuality, dialogism, and anachronism, novels such as Carpentier´s El arpa y la sombra and Posse´s Los perros del paraíso, undermine the values and beliefs instituted by the traditional historiographic paradigm and the discourse of power.

The present thesis uses as its primary source of inspiration Argentine author Abel Posse's El largo atardecer del caminante (1992), which boasts the historically-based, unconventional Spanish conquistador, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, as its main protagonist and narrator. I explore the juxtaposition of two opposing forms of metaphorical consumption in the novel. To highlight the first, I apply to the fictional Cabeza de Vaca the general concept of antropofagia cultural, or "cultural cannibalism," as described by Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade in his "Manifesto Antropófago" (1928). I specifically examine the symbolic development of Posse's Cabeza de Vaca as the first latinoamericano via cultural anthropophagy. Over time, the life-altering experiences during the course of his wanderings in North and South America convert him into an antropófago cultural by virtue of his conscientious, metaphorical consumption of the Other. By extension, Cabeza de Vaca becomes a model for the first latinoamericano, wrought, not through miscegenation, but rather through cultural contact. The second kind of consumption, on the other extreme, is represented in the novel through sixteenth-century Spain and its quasi-literal, compulsive consumption and subsequent expulsion of the New World Other. This is seen through the optic of the fictional Cabeza de Vaca in his waning moments in Seville. Posse's rendition of Spain, as seen through his historically-inspired narrator, is representative of the metaphorical indigestion caused by a thoughtless consumption of products, practices, lands, and even people from the New World. I put on display the manner in which sixteenth-century Spain is portrayed in the novel as suffering a figurative bloating, consuming so much, so fast, seemingly growing large and powerful until it is ultimately revealed as being sick and weak.

The present work is focused on interpretation of the novel Daimón, written by Argentinian writer Abel Posse. It indicates the context of the "Latin America's new historical novel", comments the historical background of the story, touches the concept of time in the novel. Then the work analyses in detail the composition of the novel which is structured as a Tarot cards reading, explains the importance of the Tarot not only for interpretation of the Daimón novel, but also for understanding the World in general. Key words: Tarot, Lope de Aguirre, Abel Posse, new historical Latin America's new historical novel, dialogism, parody, heteroglossia, spiritual path, Toltec, Toltec shamanism, Carlos Castaneda, concept of cyclical time, contradictions, realization.