ANTONIO PEREIRA: UN COSTUMBRISMO CON TRAZOS POSMODERNOS

Even though certain critics have pointed to costumbrista elements in Antonio Pereira's (1923-2009) short fiction, most tend to either dodge or undervalue his affiliation with the genre called costumbrismo, instead choosing to highlight the postmodern aspects of his short stories. This article traces an arc that reconsiders nineteenth-century costumbrismo in the context of Pereira's fiction to propose a critical stance that vindicates this legacy in a novel way. In fact, Pereira's playful flirtation with autobiographical writing has its roots in experiments with authorial representations by authors such as Larra, Mesonero Romanos, and especially Gil y Carrasco, to whom Pereira explicitly pays tribute. Thus, Pereira refashions the narrative experiments of his literary antecessors to offer sketches of the people from the Bierzo region in León, while he also engages in postmodern writing practices, including autofiction in cosmopolitan contexts. These postmodern practices in Pereira's fiction stem from costumbrismo and build on three characteristics shared with costumbrista texts: observations of the surroundings that depict type characters and genre scenes conveying a sense of authenticity, the ruse of authorial masks, and the complicity of the reader.