Fiction and the Reader

I8 .t HE four prefaces of Tutambia, a collection of *aun tt a. short stories published shortly before Joao Guimaries Rosa's death in 1967, are of paramount + importance for the understanding of his aesthetics, for they present in compact form virtually all of his major ideas about literary creation: the role of the imagination, the magical power of literary language, the nature of time and, last but not least, the partnership between the writer and the reader in the creative process. Yet, although the prefaces provide valuable insights into Guimaries Rosa's aesthetics, they should not be approached as a coherent theoretical system.' The author of these prefaces is above all a writer of fiction, who cannot forego the joy of language play nor forsake a world populated by imagined characters. Although the prefaces contain many philosophical and metalinguistic elements, they should not be viewed as philosophical or metalinguistic texts. As in his fiction, the conceptual and imag

Art · Literature · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · History · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

• Another Turn of the Screw

  Jon Thomas Rowland, Jon Rowland•Studies in eighteenth century…•1992

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