Which Venezuelan author wrote the novel 'Doña Bárbara'?

Which Venezuelan author wrote the novel “Doña Bárbara”? Rómulo Gallegos wrote it.

First published in 1929, Doña Bárbara is the best-known novel by Venezuelan writer Rómulo Gallegos. Set in the Venezuelan Llanos, particularly around the Apure region and the Arauca River, it portrays a struggle between law, education, and social order on one side and violence, corruption, and arbitrary power on the other.

The central conflict pits Santos Luzardo, a lawyer educated in Caracas, against Doña Bárbara, a powerful landowner who controls property and people through intimidation, manipulation, and corruption. Her daughter Marisela becomes part of the novel’s larger movement from neglect toward education and social possibility. The characters and landscape turn the story into an allegory of Venezuela’s political and cultural tensions.

Gallegos gathered material during a 1927 journey through the Apure Llanos, and the novel reflects the region’s speech, customs, geography, and ranching life. A common mistake is treating Doña Bárbara as merely a romance or melodrama; it is also a regionalist social novel shaped by debates about civilization, barbarism, dictatorship, and modernization.