A Historial Farce: Mexican Skirmuces and Hitler's Gun in Los argentinos no existen by Luis Arturo Ramos

Abstract

Luis Arturo Ramos proposes in his short novel Los Argentinos no existen (2005) a farce around the Walther PPK pistol with which Hitler is said to have committed suicide. The objective of this essay is to consider how the absurdity and anachronism of a fictional situation allows us to approach the text from comic styles such as satire or black comedy, which precisely approximate the detective situation that Ramos humorously revives and that, nevertheless, ties in with a historical stage of international immigration where different ideologies caused sympathy and fascination, but also prejudice and mistrust. The structure of this essay presents a brief synopsis of the author and the critical reception of the work. The following sections, in accordance with the proposed objective, support the elaboration of a farce in view of the exaggerated nature of the characters involved and the unprecedented circumstances of the plot, to underline a burlesque plot that paradoxically refers us to the historical concert of a time of dubious political and economic relations between Mexico and Nazi Germany.