Paris, the End of the Party in Blest Gana’s Los Trasplantados (1904)

Abstract

Alberto Blest Gana’s Los Trasplantados (1904) narrates the saga of a Hispanic American family that, in France, ends up sacrificing sacrifice one of their daughters by way of marriage to access a decadent aristocratic figure. The family patriarch’s entrepreneurial vocation, the same that allowed him to rose into the social ranks of the provincial elite in his country of origin, collapses in Paris. The Canalejas’ initial journey gives way to a two years residence over a moralizing narrative about the social, ethical and cultural wreckage endured by those who not only aspire to enjoy Europe but to sacrifice everything to feel fully integrated into a city imagined from Latin America. Above all, the children are worse off, losing their places in both worlds and unable to understand either.