The Magellan Fallacy: Globalization and the Emergence of Asian and African Literature in Spanish by Adam Lifshey (review)

Spanish is widely recognized as a language that boasts an outstanding and diverse literary tradition, from Cervantes to García Marquez, Neruda, Eltit, and Bolaño, to name but a few out of a long list of illustrious writers. Yet, in academia and beyond, literature in Spanish is usually considered to be synonymous with texts produced in Spain, in Latin America, and, more recently, by Spanish-speaking authors living in North America. Adam Lifshey’s study deepens our understanding of the Spanish-speaking literary world by drawing our attention to the oft-neglected Asian and African literatures in Spanish. The book offers not only an excellent introduction to the topic for scholars unacquainted with this body of work, but also provides in-depth analyses of some key texts by authors from the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea.

One of the guiding threads in The Magellan Fallacy is an inquiry into the power relations that shape perceived notions of center and periphery. The foundational standoff between Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working for the Spanish crown, and Lapu Lapu, the chief of a small island in the archipelago that came to be known as the Philippines, foreshadows the complex dynamics between the global and the local unleashed by colonialism. Magellan was killed by Lapu Lapu, who resisted the European’s efforts at evangelizing his island. Nevertheless, Spain’s goal of circumnavigating the world was achieved as the surviving members of Magellan’s crew managed to sail back home. This emblematic episode reveals what Lifshey calls “the Magellan fallacy”: that is, the conviction that global powers such as the Spanish empire, represented by Magellan, necessarily prevail over local influences. The book shows how the empire fights (and writes) back and thus dramatically changes the colonial center.

The Magellan Fallacy illustrates this struggle between global and local forces through a close reading of Spanish texts produced by Asian and African writers. An example is the discussion in chapter 1 of Pedro Paterno’s novel Nínay, the first Asian novel in Spanish and the first Filipino novel ever written, published in Madrid in 1885. Lifshey points out that Nínay follows many of the conventions of the costumbrismo literary genre popular in Spain at the time, in which fictional texts were set in faraway locations and colorfully described local customs for the benefit of European readers. One of Paterno’s central claims in the narrative is that, despite cultural specificities, the Filipinos are as Spanish and by extension as European, as the colonizers themselves. Yet Lifshey undertakes a reading of Nínay “against the grain,” whereby he shows that the novel moves beyond a simple costumbrista text and in particular episodes weaves an implicit critique of Spanish domination. Paterno’s text ends with the deaths of the male and female protagonists, the representatives of the Spanish-influenced Filipino elite. The fruitlessness of this social group contrasts with the survival skills of a male bandit who challenges dominant orders in the islands and of the female anti-heroine, the true foundational couple in Nínay. Even though Paterno strove to portray Filipino society as part of Spain, his novel ultimately revealed the sterility of such an endeavor.

The following chapters comment on literary works resulting from two very different moments in Filipino history. Chapter 2 analyzes the novel El filibusterismo (Subversion, 1891) by acclaimed author José Rizal, a national hero and founding father of Filipino literature who was assassinated by the authorities as the suspected leader of a revolution to overthrow Spanish rule over the archipelago. In El filibusterismo, Rizal openly condemns Spanish colonial malfeasance and lays the ground for Filipino nationalism. The chapter continues with a discussion of the novellas collected in Pedro Paterno’s Aurora social (Social Dawn, 1910–11), which reflect the social situation of a country that became independent from Spain only to be colonized...