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Colonial Latin American Literature
A vivid account of the literary culture of the Spanish-speaking Americas from the time of Columbus to Latin American Independence, this Very Short Introduction explores the origins of Latin American literature in Spanish and tells the story of how Spanish literary language developed andflourished in the New World. A leading scholar of colonial Latin American literature, Rolena Adorno examines the writings that debated the justice of the Spanish conquests, described the novelties of New World nature, expressed the creativity of Hispanic baroque culture in epic, lyric, and satiricalpoetry, and anticipated Latin American Independence. The works of Spanish, creole, and Amerindian authors highlighted here, including Bartolome de las Casas, Felipe Guaman Poma, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and Andres Bello, have been chosen for the merits of their writings, their participation in the larger literary and cultural debates of their times,and their resonance among readers today.
Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature
A comprehensive, encyclopedic guide to the authors, works, and topics crucial to the literature of Central and South America and the Caribbean, the Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature includes over 400 entries written by experts in the field of Latin American studies. Most entries are of 1500 words but the encyclopedia also includes survey articles of up to 10,000 words on the literature of individual countries, of the colonial period, and of ethnic minorities, including the Hispanic communities in the United States. Besides presenting and illuminating the traditional canon, the encyclopedia also stresses the contribution made by women authors and by contemporary writers.
Critical Insights: Contemporary Latin American Fiction
This volume will explore contemporary Latin American fiction and will focus on authors born after 1950 and works published since the mid-1990s. Authors include Chilean Roberto Bolano, Mexican Daniel Sada, and Costa Rican Ana Cristina Rossi. The volume will also deal with the presence of social media and new technology in current Latin American literature.
Critical Insights: Gabriel García Márquez
There are several compendiums in English about the life and work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, that help to amplify our understanding of his influence; among the most rewarding are those by Harold Bloom and Gene H. Bell- Villada. In selecting the essays for this volume, the objective has been to reach further and deeper into Garcia Marquez's works while offering a panoramic view of its principal motifs and obsessions.
Critical Insights: Mario Vargas Llosa
Unarguably the greatest active Spanish language novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 2010 for, in the Swedish Academy s words, "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat. Beginning with Time of the Hero (1963), the searing virtuoso modernist portrayal of the Leoncio Prado military school, which he had in fact attended, to the recent El heroe discreto (The Discrete Hero) (2013), which presents an optimistic vision of his contemporary native Peru, Vargas Llosa has created an unusually vivid and complex fresco of his country s twentieth and twenty first century s political and social evolution. Vargas Llosa has also compellingly portrayed a peasant rebellion in 19th century Brazil in his masterwork The War of the End of the World (1983), the brutal regime of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in his The Feast of the Goat (2000), Flora Tristan s and her grandson Paul Gauguin s search for political and artistic utopias in The Way to Paradise (2003), and the personal and political struggles of English diplomat and Irish independence activist Roger Casement in The Dream of the Celt (2010)."
Critical Insights: Roberto Bolaño
The New York Times once hailed Chilean poet and author Roberto Bolano as 'the most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation.' As author of such acclaimed works as Los Detectives Salvajes, 2666, Amuleto, and Una novelita lumpen, Bolano led an unsettled, turbulent life full of revolution and provocation tones that burst through in every word he wrote. This volume examines that life, as well as Bolano's literary politics and influences.
The Death of Artemio Cruz - Carlos Fuentes
The Death of Artemio Cruz, published in 1962, proved to be a breakthrough novel for Carlos Fuentes, as it solidified his place as one of Mexico’s most revered literary figures. Through a series of flashbacks, the novel chronicles the life of Artemio Cruz, the tragic protagonist, as he loses his boyhood idealism and amasses both power and wealth in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz features a collection of captivating and informative critical essays that will enhance a reader's understanding of and appreciation for this paramount work of modern Latin American literature.
Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 by Daniel Balderston; Mike Gonzalez
The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 draws together entries on all aspects of literature including authors, critics, major works, magazines, genres, schools and movements in these regions from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. With more than 200 entries written by a team of international contributors, this Encyclopedia successfully covers the popular to the esoteric. The Encyclopedianbsp;is an invaluable reference resource for those studying Latin American and/or Caribbean literature as well as being of huge interest to those folowing Spanish or Portuguese language courses.
Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003
The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 draws together entries on all aspects of literature including authors, critics, major works, magazines, genres, schools and movements in these regions from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. With more than 200 entries written by a team of international contributors, this Encyclopediasuccessfully covers the popular to the esoteric. The Encyclopedia is an invaluable reference resource for those studying Latin American and/or Caribbean literature as well as being of huge interest to those following Spanish or Portuguese language courses.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez : A Critical Companion
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his masterpiece "One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel Garc DEGREESD'ia M DEGREESD'arquez had already earned tremendous respect and popularity in the years leading up to that honor, and remains, to date, an active and prolific writer. Readers are introduced to Garc DEGREESD'ia M DEGREESD'arquez with a vivid account of his fascinating life; from his friendships with poets and presidents, to his distinguished career as a journalist, novelist, and chronicler of the quintessential Latin American experience. This companion also helps students situate Garc DEGREESD'ia M DEGREESD'arquez within the canon of Western literature, exploring his contributions to the modern novel in general, and his forging of literary techniques, particularly magic realism, that have come to distinguish Latin American fiction. Full literary analysis is given for "One Hundred Years of Solitude," as well as "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" (1981), "Love in the Time of Cholera" (1985), two additional novels, and five of Garc DEGREESD'ia M DEGREESD'arquez's best short stories. Students are given guidance in understanding the historical contexts, as well as the characters and themes that recur in these interrelated works. Narrative technique and alternative critical perspectives are also explored for each work, helping readers fully appreciate the literary accomplishments of Gabriel Garc DEGREESD'ia M DEGREESD'arquez.
Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater
The Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater provides users with an accessible single-volume reference tool covering Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the 16 Spanish-speaking countries of continental Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela). Entries for authors, ranging from the early colonial period to the present, give succinct biographical data and an account of the author's literary production, with particular attention to their most prominent works and where they belong in literary history. The introduction provides a review of Latin American literature and theater as a whole while separate dictionary entries for each country offer insight into the history of national literatures. Entries for literary terms, movements, and genres serve to complement these commentaries, and an extensive bibliography points the way for further reading. The comprehensive view and detailed information obtained from all these elements will make this book of use to the general-interest reader, Latin American studies students, and the academic specialist.
Macho Ethics : Masculinity and Self-Representation in Latino-Caribbean Narrative
Masculinity is not a monolithic phenomenon, but a historically discontinuous one--a fabrication as it were, of given cultural circumstances. Because of its opacity and instability, masculinity, like more recognizable systems of oppression, resists discernibility. In Macho Ethics: Masculinity and Self-Representation in Latino-Caribbean Narrative, Jason Cortes seeks to reveal the inner workings of masculinity in the narrative prose of four major Caribbean authors: the Cuban Severo Sarduy; the Dominican American Junot Diaz; and the Puerto Ricans Luis Rafael Sanchez and Edgardo Rodriguez Julia. By exploring the relationship between ethics and authority, the legacies of colonial violence, the figure of the dictator, the macho, and the dandy, the logic of the Archive, the presence of Oscar Wilde, and notions of trauma and mourning, Macho Ethics fills a gap surrounding issues of power and masculinity within the Caribbean context, and draws attention to what frequently remains invisible and unspoken.
Mexican Literature : A History
Mexico has a rich literary heritage that extends back over centuries to the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. This major reference work surveys more than five hundred years of Mexican literature from a sociocultural perspective. More than merely a catalog of names and titles, it examines in detail the literary phenomena that constitute Mexico's most significant and original contributions to literature. Recognizing that no one scholar can authoritatively cover so much territory, David William Foster has assembled a group of specialists, some of them younger scholars who write from emerging trends in Latin American and Mexican literary scholarship. The topics they discuss include pre-Columbian indigenous writing (Joanna O'Connell), Colonial literature (Lee H. Dowling), Romanticism (Margarita Vargas), nineteenth-century prose fiction (Mario Martín Flores), Modernism (Bart L. Lewis), major twentieth-century genres (narrative, Lanin A. Gyurko; poetry, Adriana García; theater, Kirsten F. Nigro), the essay (Martin S. Stabb), literary criticism (Daniel Altamiranda), and literary journals (Luis Peña). Each essay offers detailed analysis of significant issues and major texts and includes an annotated bibliography of important critical sources and reference works.
Modern Latin American Literature
In the 1960s, Latin American literature became known worldwide as never before. Writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and Mario Vargas Llosa all became part of the general culture of educated readers of English, French, German,and Italian. But few know about the literary tradition from which these writers emerged. This Very Short Introduction remedies this situation, providing an overview of modern Latin American literature from the late eighteenth century to the present. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria covers a wide range of topics, discussing the birth of Modernismo, the first Latin American literary movement; how the end of World War I and the Mexican Revolution produced the avant-garde; and how the Cuban Revolution sparked a movement in the novel that came to beknown as the Boom. Within this narrative, the author covers many of the major writers of Latin American literature, from Andres Bello and Jose Maria de Heredia through Borges and Garcia Marquez to Fernando Vallejo and Roberto Bolano.
Open Veins of Latin America
Tracing five centuries of exploitation in Latin America, a classic in the field, now in its twenty fifth year Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.
Pragmatic Passions
From the era of the wars for independence onward, the emotionally heightened and ethically charged theatrics of melodrama have played a substantial role in the framing of Latin American fictional narrative. Over that same time period, melodramatic reasoning has influenced the critical models through which the countries of the region conceive their respective histories and political landscapes. Pragmatic Passions: Melodrama and Latin American Social Narrative demonstrates how melodrama is deployed as a convincing means of affectively narrating socio-political messages, yet how it also unwittingly undermines the narrative structure of paradigmatic works by Rómulo Gallegos, César Vallejo, Roberto Arlt, Jorge Amado, and Carlos Fuentes.
The Reptant Eagle : Essays on Carlos Fuentes and the Art of the Novel
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) was the most prominent novelist in contemporary Mexico and, until his recent death, one of the leading voices in Latin America's Boom generation. He received the most prestigious awards and prizes in the world, including the Latin Civilization Award (presented by the Presidents of Brazil, Mexico, and France), the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, and the Prince of Asturias Award. During his fecund and accomplished life as a writer, literary theorist, and political analyst, Fuentes turned his attention to the major conflicts of the twentieth century- from the Second World War and the Cuban Revolution, to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the war in Vietnam, and the post-revolutionary crisis of the one-party rule in Mexico - and attended to their political and international importance in his novels, short fiction, and essays. Known for his experimentation in narrative techniques, and for novels and essays written in a global range that illuminate the conflicts of our times, Fuentes's writings have been rightfully translated into most of the world's languages. His literary work continues to spur and provoke the interest of a global readership on diverse civilizations and eras, from Imperial Spain and post-revolutionary France, to Ancient and Modern Mexico, the United States, and Latin America. The Reptant Eagle: Essays on Carlos Fuentes and the Art of the Novel includes nineteen essays and one full introduction written exclusively for this volume by renowned Fuentes scholars from Asia, Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Collected into five parts, the essays integrate wide-ranging methods and innovative readings of The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962), Aura (1962), Terra Nostra (1975) and, among other novels, Distant Relations (1980); they analyze the visual arts in Fuentes's novels (Diego Rivera's murals and world film); chart and comment on the translations of Fuentes's narratives into Japanese and Romanian; and propose comprehensive readings of The Buried Mirror (1992) and Personas (2012), Fuentes's posthumous book of essays. Beyond their comprehensive and interdisciplinary scope, the book's essays trace Fuentes's conscious resolve to contribute to the art of the novel and to its uninterrupted tradition, from Cervantes and Rabelais to Thomas Mann and Alejo Carpentier, and from the Boom generation to Latin America's "Boomerang" group of younger writers. This book will be of importance to literary critics, teachers, students, and readers interested in Carlos Fuentes's world-embracing literary work.