10. Between Fiction and History in the Spanish Pacific

Chapter Three of The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez, attributed to the Novohispanic polymath Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora but widely believed to be based on a true account, tells the tale of the title character’s captivity among English pirates, who supposedly torture him for the information they need to execute savage raids on Spanish positions in the Philippines, and then plunder their way from Cambodia to Madagascar and Brazil. Nicole Legnani situates the excerpt in the larger story told by the novel as a whole and discusses the novel’s place in the broader context of colonial Latin American literature and its transpacific commitments.