This Very Short Introduction chronicles the trends and traditions of modern Latin American literature, arguing that Latin American literature developed as a continent-wide phenomenon, not just an assemblage of national literatures, in moments of political crisis. With the Spanish American War came Modernismo, the end of World War I and the Mexican Revolution produced the avant-garde, and the Cuban Revolution sparked a movement in the novel that came to be known as the Boom. Within this narrative, the author covers all of the major writers of Latin American literature, from Andrés Bello and José María de Heredia, through Borges and García Márquez, to Fernando Vallejo and Roberto Bolaño.

This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of Latin American literature from the late eighteenth century to the present. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria covers a wide range of topics, highlighting how Latin American literature became conscious of its continental scope and international reach in moments of political crisis, such as independence from Spain, the Spanish-American War, and the Mexican and Cuban revolutions. With this narrative, the author discusses major writers ranging from Andres Bello and Jose Maria Heredia through Borges and Garcia Marquez to Fernando Vallejo and Roberto Bolano.

In the 1960s, there occurred amongst Latin American writers a sudden explosion of literary activity known as the ‘Boom’. It marked an increase in the production and availability of innovative and experimental novels. But the ‘Boom’ of the 1960s should not be taken as the only flowering of Latin American fiction, for such novels dubbed ‘new novels’ were being written in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as in the 1970s and 1980s. In this edited collection, first published in 1990, Philip Swanson charts the development of Latin American fiction throughout the twentieth century. He assesses the impact of the ‘new novel’ on Latin American literature, and follows its growth. Nine key texts are analysed by contributors, including works by the ‘big four’ of the ‘Boom’ – Fuentes, Cortázar, Garcia Márquez and Vargas Llosa. This book will be of interest to critics and teachers of Latin American literature, and will be useful too as supplementary reading for students of Spanish and Hispanic Studies. It will also serve as a helpful introduction to those new to Latin American fiction.

The Concise Encyclopedia includes: all entries on topics and countries, cited by many reviewers as being among the best entries in the book; entries on the 50 leading writers in Latin America from colonial times to the present; and detailed articles on some 50 important works in this literature-those who read and studied in the English-speaking world.

Provides an understanding of the events and cultural differences shaping these nations' texts, the lives of their writers, and the impact of Spanish and Latin American literature.

Publisher Description

Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy, history, psychology, literature, and social justice theory, this study delineates the synergistic connection between masquerade and social justice in Latin American fiction.

This book introduces readers to the evolution of modern fiction in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Presents Latin American fiction in its cultural and political contexts. Introduces debates about how to read this literature. Combines an overview of the evolution of modern Latin American fiction with detailed studies of key texts. Discusses authors such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Isabel Allende. Covers nation-building narratives, ‘modernismo’, the New Novel, the Boom, the Post-Boom, Magical Realism, Hispanic fiction in the USA, and more.

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.

"Revised and expanded third edition"--Cover.