On the Left, the terrifying defeat of the Commune, the collapse of the First International, and Marx’s death had opened the way for the rapid rise of anarchism in various forms, initially in France and Spain, but not much later in other parts of Europe, North America, the Caribbean and South America, as well as the Far East. Alfred Nobel had invented the first wmd readily available to energetic members of the oppressed classes almost anywhere. Bismarck had made Germany the dominant power in Europe, and pioneered a new global German imperialism (alongside several others, of course) in Africa, Asia and Oceania. But it could almost as well be termed novela mundial. He subtitled his second major fiction novela filipina with good political reason. He had also lived for extended periods in Paris, Berlin and London. footnote 1īy the time El Filibusterismo was published in 1891, Rizal, now thirty, had been in Europe for almost ten years, and had learned the two master-languages of the subcontinent-German and French-as well as some English. The second is to allow a new global landscape of the late nineteenth century to come into view, from the estranging vantage point of a brilliant young man (who coined the wonderful expression el demonio de las comparaciones) from one of its least-known peripheries. One is to use a transnational space/time framework to try to solve puzzles which have long perplexed critics of Rizal’s last published novel. The aims of the present article are twofold. More than that, from very early on his political trajectory was profoundly affected by events in Europe, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, and their often violent local backwash thousands of miles away in his home country. He also perused the newspapers and magazines of the various capitals in which he lived-Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London-not to mention non-fiction books. But Rizal was not only the first great novelist but also the founding father of the modern Philippine nation, and did not read merely fiction. I argued that Rizal learnt much from European novelists, yet transformed what he found there to explosive new anticolonial effect.

I n an earlier article, ‘Nitroglycerine in the Pomegranate’ in nlr 27, I discussed the novels of Filipino José Rizal- Noli me Tangere and, in particular, El Filibusterismo (Subversion) of 1891-within a loosely literary framework.

Benedict anderson