Las Noches de Babel by Ricardo Miró: modernity, mimicry and criticism of a novel from the Transit Zone in Panama

Abstract

Taking into account the contemporary readings on Panamanian literature and, especially, on Las Noches de Babel (1913) by Ricardo Miró, I hermeneutically review the “romantic” readings made by Panamanian critics who condemned this novel to oblivion for being developed in a space that, for them, it was not essentially national and foreign, like the Transit Zone (which includes Panama City), where the plot of the novel takes place. Now, what I intend to demonstrate here is that, precisely, what Miró does is project a corrupt city and denounces the mimicry and superficiality of the city elites oriented by tastes and lifestyles towards the foreigner.