The Englishman of the Bones (novel)

The Englishman of the Bones (Spanish: El inglés de los güesos) is a 1924 Argentine novel by Benito Lynch. It is part of the Gaucho literature movement. The novel reflects Benito Lynch’s broader literary interest in the culture of the Argentine pampas and the lives of rural inhabitants during the early twentieth century. Like several of Lynch’s works, it combines elements of regional realism with themes of cultural encounter, portraying the interaction between foreign observers and local traditions in the Argentine countryside ^[1].A major theme of the novel is the cultural exchanges between the British and the Argentine characters.^[2] In 1940 it was adapted into a film of the same title directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen.

A young English expert on fossils meets and has a relationship with a gaucho woman while he is investigating the remains of indigenous people in Argentina. When he leaves, she is overcome with despair and kills herself.^[3]

• Huberman, Ariana. Gauchos and Foreigners: Glossing Culture and Identity in the Argentine Countryside. Lexington Books, 2010.
• Torres-Rioseco, Arturo. The Epic of Latin American Literature. University of California Press, 1961.