LA EMANCIPADA

In this revised 2nd edition, Dr. Flor María Rodríguez-Arenas establishes Miguel Riofríos race and birth date, through presenting the facsimile of his Certificate of Baptism, thus correcting the information that has circulated in Ecuador since the 19th century. The text of the novel is offered in a complete form, as the author published it. In the first edition, based on the modern text published by the Consejo Provincial de Loja in 1974, the narrative frame was missing. Also, the study of the text offers new findings about the fictional world created by Riofrío. With his novel La Emancipada (1863) Miguel Riofrio led the Ecuadorian literature into the modern world. Written at mid-nineteenth century this work expresses a method of believable representation -non-biased and objective- of the real world, based upon a careful observation of reality, a censoring and critical attention of the Ecuadorian social life in his times. From that standpoint and through techniques he employed, Riofrio placed his novel within the leading movement in Europe -France- after 1840