Lorenzo Feliciano Wins Best Essay Award for Publication on Puerto Rican Novel

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Violeta Lorenzo Feliciano

Violeta Lorenzo Feliciano, associate professor of Spanish in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures and faculty member of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, has received the Best Essay Award from the Canadian Association of Hispanists.

The association's executive board endorsed Lorenzo Feliciano's peer-reviewed publication, "Entre carros y urbanizaciones: industrialización, modernización y años formativos en Isla verde (el Chevy azul) de Manuel Martínez Maldonado," as the 2020 winner.   

The essay, which was published in the 2019 spring issue of the academic journal Cincinnati Romance Review, stems from the way in which scholars frame the Bildungsroman genre in the context of the changes that arose as a result of modernity.

Lorenzo Feliciano analyzes how Martínez Maldonado's novel alters the personal, social, political, and national teleological and allegorical progress that is typical of coming of age narratives. Her work illustrates that this change in the teleological structure points to the modernity and industrialization that the 1952 Estado Libre Asociado — Puerto Rico's system of government as an unincorporated territory of the United States — was supposed to bring to the island. Lorenzo Feliciano's analysis shows how Isla verde (el Chevy azul) portrays the stagnation of the Estado Libre Asociado as a political and economic model as well as its inability to foster the independence and wellbeing of future generations.

The essay demonstrates how modernity, nation, and youth are intertwined in coming of age narratives and contributes to the understanding of the relationship between literature and nation-building in colonial contexts. Her study also points to how the implementation of American development theories in Puerto Rico by both local and foreign authorities have shaped the island's national discourses and political projects.

About the Canadian Association of Hispanists: The Canadian Association of Hispanists (CAH) was founded in 1964 to promote Hispanic studies in Canada in all its artistic and scientific manifestations and to contribute to the professional development of its members. The CAH also publishes the prestigious Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies/Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, which was founded in 1976 to disseminate academic research. The CAH organizes annual congresses in different parts of Canada, with international participation, under the sponsorship of the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS). For more information, visit www.hispanistas.ca.

About the Cincinnati Romance Review: The Cincinnati Romance Review is a peer-reviewed electronic journal published by the University of Cincinnati's Department of Romance and Arabic Languages and Literatures. The journal was founded in 1981-1982 and has been published electronically since 2008. The journal publishes original submissions and reviews on any subject related to Romance languages, literatures, and cultures. Submissions may be written in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish.