Emilia Serrano, baroness of Wilson, and the travel literature: Maravillas Americanas and América y sus mujeres

Abstract

Emilia Serrano, a granadian writer of XIX century, spent half of her life in Latin America, becoming a good connoisseur of the entire continent. Her books Maravillas americanas and America y sus mujeres attempted to relate her experience, in a moment of remarkable changes in the relation between Spain and Latin America. This article tries to analyze Serrano’s position within travel literature, in a time when women writers acceded massively to this genre, but also in the way that she used two narrative modes: literature on manners and autobiography to elaborate her imaginary perception of Serrano’s adoption country.