El modo épico en José María Arguedas is a critical study of the novels by this Peruvian author. Spina attempts to demonstrate the Arguedas' novels share characteristics more commonly found in epic writing; i.e., the struggle between opposing societies, the hero's quest to return to his/her society. At the same time, this book was one of the first to demonstrate that, to properly understand Arguedas' novels, one must understand the cosmology of the Andean people, from whose point of view the novels were written. Spina pointed out that the Indigenous rituals and customs described in the novels have the same significance as those rituals and customs found in a Western Christian society. Thus, Arguedas was not writing about "folk tales"; he described in his novels an alternative vision of the world.