Gana Alberto Blest

Background

He was born in Santiago, the son of an Irishman, William Cunningham Blest, and of María de la Luz Gana Darrigrandi, from an aristocratic landowning family. He studied at the Military Academy and then for one year in France.

Education

Blest Gana was educated at the Santiago military academy.

Career

While living in France between 1847 and 1851, he read passionately the novels of Balzac. Upon his return home, he virtually founded the Chilean novel by adapting European techniques to some ten novels portraying various aspects of national history and life. Of these, the most important is MartínMartin Rivas (1862), which describes the career of a young man so named during the period of the revolt of 1851. The action is accompanied by abundant local color and social criticism. Although these elements of description are not brought fully to life and fused with the plot in the manner of a Balzac, the novel achieved great success as the first realistic portrayal of Chilean life. After its publication, Blest Gana entered the diplomatic service and was Chilean ambassador to France and Great Britain for many years. Other novels of this first period are La aritmética del amor (1860; "The Arithmetic of Love") and El ideal de un calavera (1863; "The Rake's Ideal"). Upon his retirement from diplomacy many years later, Blest Gana returned to the novel. Strongly influenced by his reading of the new masters of the form, he produced his best work. Four novels correspond to this second period of creative activity: Durante la reconquista (1897; "During the Reconquest"), Los transplantados (1904; "The Exiles"), El loco Estero (1909; "Estero the Mad"), and Gladys Fairfield (1912). The third of these novels, El loco Estero, is about the Chile of Blest Gana's childhood, and its liveliness of adventure and love intrigue infused with nostalgia qualify it, in the opinion of most critics, as Blest Gana's greatest and most appealing work. As in the case of Mark Twain, its local color has been aged and purified in the memory. The last novel, Gladys Fairfield, almost unanimously rejected by the critics, treats of international society in Switzerland. Blest Gana died in Paris on November 9, 1920.

Achievements

• His literary work - almost exclusively novels - followed the aesthetic ideals and themes of the European Realism, but with a conscious "Americanization" of themes, as a way of making the genre fit (and educational enough) to be read by a national audience. His writings were explicitly influenced by 19th century liberalism, but they are also an attempt to reconcile religious and moral ideals of his time.

Works

More photos

• book

  • La Aritmética En El Amor: Novela De Costumbres, Volume 1 (Spanish Edition)

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Martin Rivas

    (Martín Rivas, one of the most important novels by Alberto...)

  • Gladys Fairfield (Spanish Edition)

    (Gladys Farfield, de 1912, es la última fatiga literaria d...)

  • El Pago De Las Deudas: Novela Original (1884) (Spanish Edition)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Durante La Reconquista... (Spanish Edition)

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • UN DIA EN EL CAMPO DE LA VENGANZA - ALBERTO BLEST GANA (Spanish Edition)

    (Alberto Blest Gana (1830, Santiago - París, 1920). Fue un...)

  • El Loco Estero

Connections

Father:

William Cunningham Blest

Mother:

Luz Gana Darrigrandi