Abstract
The novel in Latin America has its origins in works such as La Araucana and Comentarios reales de los incas, where some narrative elements are seen. However, it is in the 17th century when the historical novel appears in Latin America. During this century, authors such as Antonio de Ochoa, Bernardo de Balbuena and Francisco Bramón start the first manifestations of this genre, which had an even more important development in the 18th and 19th centuries, with writers like José Justo Gómez, José María Lacunza and Ignacio Rodríguez Galván, who gave a strong push to the works of historical character. The novel Jicotencal, by José María Heredia, deserves special mention, for it is considered the first indigenous work in our tongue and is characterized for being, first of all, an ideological novel. Besides, the author reflects on the old controversy about the mix of the purely historical and the imaginative in the historical novel.