The Emergence of Latin American Science Fiction

1. DISPLACEMENT IN SPACE AND TIME: THE LATIN AMERICAN UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA

15 DISPLACEMENT IN SPACE AND TIME THE LATIN AMERICAN UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA foundational utopias Three of the earliest works of Latin American science fiction are “Mexico in the Year 1970” [México en el año 1970], hereafter “Mexico 1970” (Mexico, 1844), by the pseudonymous author Fósforos-Cerillos; Pages from the History of Brazil Written in the Year 2000 [Páginas da história do Brasil escripta no anno de 2000], hereafter Brazil 2000 (Brazil, 1868–72), by Joaquim Felício dos Santos (1828–95); and The Marvelous Journey of Mr. NicNac to the Planet Mars (complete title: The Marvelous Journey of Mr. Nic-Nac in Which Are Recounted the Prodigious Adventures of This Gentleman and Are Made Known the Institutions, Customs and Preoccupations of an Unknown World: A Spiritist Fantasy [Viaje maravilloso del Señor Nic-Nac en el que se refieren las prodijiosas aventuras de este señor y se dan á conocer las instituciones, costumbres y preocupaciones de un mundo desconocido: Fantas íaespiritista]),hereafterNic-Nac(Argentina,1875–76), by Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg (1852–1937). When they were originally published, readers would certainly have recognized the “loose bonds of kinship” between these texts and those written by the founding fathers and mothers of Northern sf (Stableford, Scientific Romance 4). The clearest indications of these kinships are the use of the tropes of time and space displacement, direct citations of the works and ideas of Northerners in the texts themselves, and the advertisement published by the newspaper El Nacional promoting the forthcoming bookversionofNic-Nacasanarrativethatwouldawaken “the same interest as any of the best novels of this genre coming from the pen of the popular Jules Verne” T H E E M E R G E N C E O F L AT I N A M E R I C A N S C I E N C E F I C T I O N 16 (Mar. 13, 1876). Only in the last fifteen years, however—after over a century of being lost and found and re-lost and re-found—have “Mexico 1970,” Brazil 2000, and Nic-Nac come to be definitively and universally recognized and retrolabeled as some of the first examples of the genre in Latin America.1 In recent years the three have frequently been cited as such; the individual texts have often been referred to in prefaces and articles—and occasionally been analyzed in greater detail—but they have never been considered in conjunction. Before continuing to a detailed examination of the uniqueness of each text, it might be useful to outline some of the parallels among these three works.2 Northrop Frye has said, “The utopia form flourishes best when anarchy seems most a social threat” (27). These three utopian texts all emerged during conditions of national unrest (with at least two of them published in specific response to political events) although, as has been discussed, a more ideal society seemed to lie just over the horizon. All of the tales set their utopian societies in locations remote either in time or in space, using these devices of displacement to achieve Suvin’s effect of cognitive estrangement of the writer’s own reality. All are, to use Lyman Tower Sargent’s terminology, satirical utopias, depicting “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as a criticism of that contemporary society” (“Three Faces” 9). As Suvin puts it, a utopia’s “pointings reflect back upon the reader’s ‘topia’” (51).3 These texts, then, sought to pinpoint areas that required improvement in order for their nations to join the forefront of world progress and take what their writers felt to be their rightful places near the center of the international stage. Thus, the oft-cited function of the science-fictional text as an agent to bring about change would have been especially attractive to our three writers, as all were active participants in the processes of nation building and consolidation in their home countries.4 All three writers were also abreast of the scientific and technological advances of the day, and they viewed these advances as one of the principal means to national progress. Lastly, all were writers for national or regional newspapers and magazines, and at least two of the three were also editors. All three were originally published in these rather ephemeral media and—even as utopias, futuristic fictions, or...