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Iquitos: The Big Island of the Jungle and Its Literary Representation

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies
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The city of Iquitos has been represented in a series of literary works dating from the chronicles of colonial times, such as that of Fray Gaspar de Carvajal (1542) detailing the expedition through the Amazon led by Captain Francisco de Orellana. The imagined city of brave women warriors who travel naked on horseback with bows and arrows comes out of this work – the territory of the Amazons. In his chronicle of 1562, El Dorado, Francisco Vázquez recounts the journey of the conquerors Pedro de Urzúa and Lope de Aguirre who go in search of this mysterious place. El Dorado appeared in various works of the period: “Over time, the term ‘El Dorado’ came to describe not just the man, but his mysterious city of gold. Ultimately it came to symbolize the entire notion of fantastic yet exclusive wealth” (Yenne 25). In The General History of the Indies (1533), Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo wrote about the golden man who gave rise to the legend:

When I asked why this prince or chief or king was called...

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Correspondence to Carolyn Wolfenzon .

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Wolfenzon, C. (2021). Iquitos: The Big Island of the Jungle and Its Literary Representation. In: Tambling, J. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_322-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_322-1

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