Exoticism in Enrique Gómez Carrillo’s Encounter with Japan

This article analyzes Guatemalan modernist author Enrique Gómez Carrillo’s writing on Japanese women within the discourse of exoticism. Some critics that have analyzed turn-of-the-century exoticism have highlighted solely the Western modernist writer’s privileging of difference and diversity.¹ By focusing on the representation of Japanese women in this study something that critics have not noticed is revealed: Gómez Carrillo’s exoticism is in part a desire for more traditional, conservative, and aristocratic values. Thus, in this study I will elaborate on the conservative discourse that arises in Gómez Carrillo’s encounter with Japan, and in fact, also show how Gómez Carrillo suggests Japan as a model for possible reform and growth of Guatemala. Importantly, there are no studies to this point that have made note of the conservative and aristocratic aspects of Gómez Carrillo’s relationship with Japan, nor the relationship between Japan and Guatemala. In that sense, I seek here to contribute to studies on modernist exoticism and complement and amend the studies on Gómez Carrillo and his relationship with Japan.

The main text that I will analyze here, De Marsella á Tokio: sensaciónes de Egipto, La India, La China y El Japón (1906), is the result of a journey to Japan financed by La Nación and El Liberal magazines (Gómez Carrillo De Marsella ix). Gómez Carrillo was sent specifically to Japan by these magazines to obtain direct documentation on the country that had just surprised the world with its recent victory over Russia in 1905 (Barlés 819). This is a very important text because it is the first book that Gómez Carrillo publishes whose main focus and raison d’être is principally Japan. Many of the themes that Gómez Carrillo presents in this first book (in the parts on Japan) get repeated in his later books. And although Gómez Carrillo does journey to and write on several other countries on his way to Japan (including Egypt, China, Korea, etc.) for this book, his commentaries are quite brief on the other countries in comparison with his analysis of Japan which occupies half of the text,13 chapters and 128 pages, compared to 13 chapters and 138 pages for writing on all the other countries combined.² This text is also significant considering the influence it had on other modernist writers as is evidenced in the prologue written by Rubén Darío who states that though he, Darío, was never able to visit Japan, the pages Gómez Carrillo has written have allowed him to make that journey (vii-viii). In short, Darío takes Gómez Carrillo ‘s representation of Japan to be true, and faithful to what Darío had already imagined Japan to be. Darío explicitly states being relieved that Gómez Carrillo has been able to confirm that Japan is not the “europeianized or americanized” land of the East but a country of “dolls and smiles” (viii).³

Enrique Gómez Carrillo (1873-1927) was born in Guatemala. His father, a historian in Guatemala, was of Spanish origin, and his mother was of French origin (“Gómez Carrillo”). At an early age, Gómez Carrillo was attracted to writing and journalism. In Guatemala he collaborated with Rubén Darío on the newspaper Correo de la Tarde until 1890 (Barlés 819). In 1891 Gómez Carrillo went to France and he lived mostly between Madrid and Paris for the rest of his life, only going back to Guatemala on limited occasions to visit (Barrios y Barrios 11). In 1898 Guatemalan President Manuel Estrada Cabrera assigned Gómez Carrillo to the post of Guatemalan Consul in Paris (11). Gómez Carrillo also worked later as a diplomat in Germany and as Argentine Consul in Paris (11).

However, it is Gómez Carrillo’s career in Spanish letters to which he is most associated, especially as a journalist/chronicler “cronista.” Gómez Carrillo was one of the greatest “cronistas” in the Hispanic cultural field who reached the largest...