1. Abstract: “The decolonial bildungsroman: a theoretical perspective vis-à-vis Bakhtin’s
chronotope in Deep Rivers (1958) by Jose María Arguedas”
This research paper intends to examine the Arguendian novel Deep Rivers (1958) via a
theoretical framework rooted in three principles: decoloniality, the bildungsroman and the
chronotope. It will be argued that the aforementioned novel can be understood as a decolonial
bildungsroman within the specific milieu of its chronotope.
Firstly, the paper will seek to clearly define the concept of decoloniality. Decoloniality
has been established as a communal epistemology, perhaps initiated at the Bandung Conference
of 1955, which directly rejects both capitalism and socialism (Mignolo, 2013). As such, it is a
non-Eurocentric perspective whose origin is the Third World; furthermore, it is a detachment of
philosophic, economic and political affiliation with what can be referred to as the colonial matrix
of power (Quijano, 1992). In short, Deep Rivers espouses decoloniality as the only option for its
main character-narrator, Ernesto, as he comes to realize that the ayllu, the communal indigenous
space, is the only Peruvian space where he genuinely belongs.
Secondly, it will be demonstrated that the concepts of decoloniality and the
bildungsroman, a Germanic term Maynard describes “as a novel (Roman) about human
development and formation (Bildung)”, are inextricably linked in Arguedas’ Deep Rivers due to
the fact that the former becomes the outcome of the latter. Ernesto’s coming of age story can be
portrayed as a set of experiences within the time-space boundaries of mountainous south-central
Peru in the 1950s (Lambright, 2000). This notion of time-space, the chronotope as coined by
Mikhail Bakhtin, is the avenue through which young Ernesto’s novelistic trajectory is plotted.

2. Finally, the boarding school Ernesto attends, the chicherías, the houses of the rich
hacendados, and, finally, the caserío where the tenant farmers reside will be analyzed in order to
manifest Ernesto’s negation of these 1950s Peruvian spaces, thereby proving his allegiance to the
ayllu.