In her 1999 novel, Una mujer de fin de siglo, Maria Rosa Lojo evokes the decades that followed Rosas' dictatorship of Argentina (1829-1952), when the country began to move toward modernity, impelled by the ideology and aspirations of its new leaders. The protagonist of the novel, the writer Eduarda Mansilla de Garcia, was Rosas' niece, and the sister of Lucio V. Mansilla, the author of the well-known Una excursion a los indios ranqueles. Eduarda Mansilla's husband, Manuel Rafael Garcia, a career diplomat, was a member of the victorious anti-Rosas party. Lojo's novel features the drama of this...