Roger Caillois frente al paisaje patagónico, frontera de una nueva civilización

Abstract

In 1942, Roger Caillois, Victoria Ocampo’s guest in Buenos Aires, goes on his first trip to Patagonia. His impressions are translated into a praiseworthy text entitled “Patagonie” published in French, in our country, in that same year. Descriptions, emotions and reflections are intermingled in those pages which exhibit the peculiar vision of that traveller, who, thoroughly drenched in the values of his civilization of origin, becomes exalted in the face of a completely new landscape and, above all, absolutely promising. Would that be the frontier of a new civilization? Our work proposes a comparative analysis of Caillois’ work departing from Victoria Ocampo’s mailing exchange, the traveller’s biographical details and the enlightening statements of a solid scholar like Odile Felgine. It will be very important to contextualize this work by the author, whose text is undoubtedly related to his stay in Argentina until the end of WWII.