“Laura em aimará”: referências italianas na dinâmica cultural andina proposta por Gamaliel Churata

Abstract

Peruvian writer Gamaliel Churata (1897–1969) incorporates Italian characters and references into his work, which should be understood according to the cultural dynamics proposed by the author based on Andean cultures, that configure the philosophical, thematic, and linguistical discursive axis of his work. First, this article will describe Churata’s avant-garde militancy in the 1920s in the magazine Boletín Titikaka (1926-1930) and the Indo-Americanism concept, developed by him, which implies a definition of American identity grounded on the contemporary acknowledgment of originary cultures (with strong criticism towards the inner colonialism of American republics), but open to difference. Following, the aesthetic system of Andean fabrics will offer relationship models, such as tinku and the k’isas, which imply tension and metamorphosis. Based on this relational paradigm, it will be possible to understand the place offered by Churata to Dante and Petrarca in his work, where verses, characters, and words in Italian enter into active dialogue with the Andean conception of death as seed and continuity and, in a certain way, become aimará.