The novel The Marquise of Yolombó is without a doubt a text over which one can bask in a plenitude of perspectives, from the aesthetic to the historical.
It bases itself on the memories, reminiscences, and serene reflections of the great Colombian writer Tomas Carrasquilla (1858-1940), who took it upon himself in his old age to recompose, despite the lack of archives or any first hand documents, an account of the tales or travails of the problematic and difficult encounter between three different peoples from three distinct cultures (Hispanic Europeans, indigenous Americans, and black Americans) that concurrently took place in the isolated region that would later become the province of Antioquia, Colombia. Within the narrow scope of his account, not only are we able to get a close feel for the customs (dress, diet, rituals, etc.), we also enter as closely as possible into the sociopolitical tensions that resulted from the tripartite encounter, and furthermore gain new tools to help us understand the still unfolding history of the multicultural, multiethnic society that constitutes the people of Colombia and of Latin America in general.
The work presented here in gives an analysis of three notable women (with a special emphasize on Barbara Caballero), who from the moment they took action in the times they lived in, act representatively of the values they profess and of their own consciences, which more or less become apparent through the contradictions and wealth of refinement that they produce. It’s worth noting that although the regular appearance of notable female figures in Colombian or Latin American literature is common, those found in the works of Carrasquilla offer us something altogether new and a type of conscience that never fails to surpriseus for how revolutionary it is. This is true not only if we keep in mind the time period in which this work was written and the aesthetic perspective of the author, but also the type of values embodied by his characters and what that represents in the history of mentalities.