Returning to Sepúlveda Leyton: For a new Social Novel

Abstract

This essay aims to revisit the production of a rather neglected Chilean writer, Carlos Sepúlveda Leyton (1895-1941). Through the analyses of his novels Hijuna and Comrade, it argues that Sepúlveda Leyton is not just a transitional figure in Chile‘s social novel tradition; on the contrary, his work constitutes a radicalization of the social novel and as such it should deserved a more notorious position in Chile‘s literary historiography. Finally, from the study of his work it emerges the need for a reconsideration of the traditional divisions between realism and avant-garde.