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Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land

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$26.00 – $89.00

Rafael Barrett was born into the Spanish elite, but in the six intense years that he spent in Paraguay, he shed his past to become one of the most notable voices speaking out against the rampant imperialism gripping Latin America. Arriving in a nation constructed upon a foundation of bones following the Triple Alliance War of 1864-1870, Barrett was thrown by chance into the “Paraguayan sorrow” that haunted that landlocked nation in the heart of Latin America. More than half the population had been wiped out in the merciless conflict. A ferocious pattern of capitalist imperialism had taken hold. The apocalyptic war had ended a period of relative economic independence, and—as competing elites allied with foreign interests squabbled over rulership—Paraguay’s poor workers entered a long descent into utter degradation. All that Barrett witnessed prompted him to discard the vestiges of his past as an upper-class liberal dandy in Madrid, shifting his politics rapidly to the left and becoming a key ally of the growing Paraguayan anarcho-syndicalist movement.
As skirmishes between Paraguay’s national elites pushed the country from one military uprising to the next, Barrett’s prolific articles in the capital city’s press broke the silence on deep social, economic, and political problems playing out in urban and rural areas. Barrett transformed into one of Paraguay’s most vivid commentators, denouncing private property and the state, and one of the most vocal defenders of the heavily marginalized culture, language, and landscapes of the Paraguayan popular classes. He paid the ultimate price for his metamorphosis, ultimately facing banishment from the nation’s intelligentsia, poverty, exile, and a tuberculosis infection that would soon end his life.
Despite Barrett’s position as a legendary figure in Paraguayan, Uruguayan, and Argentinian leftist circles, especially among anarchists, his work has endured long periods of relative obscurity since his death. Among Barrett’s wide-ranging texts, he is often remembered for a brave exposé of the horrors committed against Paraguayan workers by powerful international companies that extracted the leaf of the yerba mate tree from the depths of enormous enclaves of forest they controlled. Barrett’s attack on this state-backed system of debt slavery would position him as a forerunner of anti-neocolonial writing in Latin America. This edition of his striking book Paraguayan Sorrow (1911), which includes his writing on the yerba mate forests, forms part of a wave of renewed interest in a striking body of writing covering an enormous number of disciplines and geographical regions. With its vivid landscapes, precise analysis, and bold denouncements, this first-ever English translation of Paraguayan Sorrow brings us a relevant and inspiring resource for the analysis of imperialism in Paraguay, Latin America, and across the globe.

Praise for Rafael Barrett

Rafael Barrett, free and audacious spirit. With tears in my eyes and on my knees, I beg of you that, when you have a coin or two to spend, you go straight to…any bookstore and ask them to give you something by this author.”

—Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short story writer, essayist, and poet

Rafael Barrett was a precursor, not only in the sense of one who precedes and goes ahead of his contemporaries, but also in the sense of one who professes and teaches ideas and doctrines that are ahead of his time.”

—Augusto Roa Bastos, Paraguayan novelist and short story writer

…that great heart, a rare case in the world, that vibrated in consonance with a great brain.”

—José Enrique Rodó, Uruguayan essayist

In his tragically short life Rafael Barrett became the foremost critic of social injustice in Paraguay, and played a pivotal role in the genesis of the socialist movement. His writings still have great resonance in this little-known country suffering extreme income and economic inequality, inspiring generations of young Paraguayans to follow in his footsteps and become socially engaged journalists.

With his excellent translation and accompanying biography, William Costa has played a major service in bringing Barrett’s work out of the shadows to a global readership.

—Andrew Nickson, Honorary Reader in Public Management and Latin American Studies, University of Birmingham, England/Inglaterra

There is very rarely true reparation for crimes committed against entire peoples. Almost never. Perhaps that is why we cling so tightly to our images of Mary, Christ, the saints, and prayer cards. Fortunately, there were—and there still are—writers and others who have looked to reconstruct these devastated peoples through the arts, sciences, and literature. Literature is where Rafael Barrett made the greatest contribution to the history of our mestizo nation.
What is it that Barrett experienced and that moved him to action? What if not the orphanhood and sorrow of a people that had suffered a genocide in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), the most brutal war in that key period of consolidation of modern, liberal, neocolonial states.

He observed, experienced and narrated the reality of a people whose nation-state, built on the free occupation of public lands by campesino families, had been completely destroyed. With one stroke of the pen, those public lands were handed over to foreign extractivist companies, leaving many families subjected to a regime of slavery.

Paraguay’s railroad was ceded to an English company and its iron foundry, which had been used to make tools, plows, machetes, rifles and ammunition, was left in ruins. This was a clear sign of why they had come to eliminate the Paraguayan people: so that they would never again think of undertaking any industrial or economic process independent of the centers and subcenters of imperialism.

For this reason, this English edition of Paraguayan Sorrow, though late, forms part of a small historical reparation to our people. We welcome it and wish for it to circulate as widely as possible among readers.

To Barrett, the great Spanish writer. To Paraguay. To Latin American history.

—Julio Benegas Vidallet, award-winning journalist, author of La masacre de Curuguaty (2013), novelist, and former general secretary of the Paraguayan Journalists Union

To read Barrett is to be inspired by his prose, to feel the depth of his analytical thinking, his immense disdain for injustice, his dedication to defending the most vulnerable, his constant struggle against the powerful, his authentic humanity.

To read his collection Paraguayan Sorrow is to be immersed in a personality brimming with irrepressible strength in the fight for social justice as he describes the veritable slavery of the workers of the yerba mate forests as had never been done before.

William Costa’s excellent introduction will familiarize you with aspects of his short life and the prolific literary work he produced over just the six final years of his unforgettable existence.

—Rafael Barrett Viedma, grandson of Rafael Barrett, administrator of the Rafael Barrett Foundation, and key historical member of the Paraguayan Communist Party

Rafael Barrett (1876-1910) was a Spanish essayist, journalist and social commentator whose writing on Paraguay was praised by the likes of Jorge Luis Borges and Eduardo Galeano. After a period of intense persecution and several years of exile he died at the early age of thirty-four.

William Costa is a freelance journalist and translator in Asunción, Paraguay. He has written for the Paraguayan and international press on issues relating to the land struggles of Indigenous and campesino communities, the environment, and yerba mate.

Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land
SKU: mrp0786 Categories: , , , Tag:

Publication Date: 10/01/2024

Number of Pages: 240

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68590-078-6

Cloth ISBN: 978-1-68590-079-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-68590-080-9

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