This Book is Your Book. Jesuit Editorial Policy and Individual Indigenous Reading

LEONARDO CERNO; CAPUCINE BOIDIN; FABIÁN R. VEGA

ETHNOHISTORY

Duke University Press

Lugar: Durham; Año: 2020 vol. 67 p. 247 - 267

0014-1801

We underline the importance of the print Ara Poru Aguyjetei haba (The Good Use of Time) for the Jesuit missions of Paraguay and the colonial Río de la Plata. Attributed to Father José Isaurralde, it is a devotional text entirely written in Guaraní that was published in Madrid in 1759/60. Until now, literature has only approached the Ara Poru in a superficial and external way, because it is written in a variety different from the current ones. The unpublished translation of the summary and two preliminaries warnings to readers reveals that it follows the structure of Ignacio de Loyola´s Spiritual Exercises. We demonstrate that the Jesuit project was to produce an indigenous reader and devotee in the modern sense (individual reading and personal transformation).