Latin American Literature

The remarkably vast and diverse domain of the literatures of Latin America does not lend itself to easy overviews. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify a variety of criss-crossing movements, tropes and categories that link the literary production of the region (Mexico, Central America, Hispanic Caribbean islands, South America, including Portuguese-speaking Brazil).

Large portions of South and Central America (the Andean region, Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay) continue to be influenced by the legacy of the great pre-Colombian cultures of the Inca, the Aymara, the Nahua, the Maya and the Guaraní. On the other hand, the African-based cultures of the enslaved have undergone a violent ‘hybridization’ or ‘transculturation’ with European elements in the crucible of plantation economy in Brazil and the Hispanic Caribbean. Finally, various countries of South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile) have been most significantly shaped by European immigration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.