Spanish American fiction became a world phenomenon in the twentieth century through multilanguage translations of such novels as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman, Octavio Paz's Labyrinth of Solitude, and Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits. Yet these "blockbusters" are only a tiny fraction of the total, rich outpouring of Spanish-language literature from Latin America. In this book, Naomi Lindstrom offers English-language readers a comprehensive survey of the century's literary production in Latin America (excluding Brazil). Discussing movements and trends, she places the famous masterworks in historical perspective and highlights authors and works that deserve a wider readership. Her study begins with Rodó's famous essay Ariel and ends with Rigoberta Menchú's 1992 achievement of the Nobel Prize. Her selection of works is designed to draw attention, whenever possible, to works that are available in good English translations. A special feature of the book is its treatment of the "postboom" period. In this important concluding section, Lindstrom discusses documentary narratives, the new interrelations between popular culture and literary writing, and underrepresented groups such as youth cultures, slum dwellers, gays and lesbians, and ethnic enclaves. Written in accessible, nonspecialized language, Twentieth-Century Spanish American Fiction will be equally useful for general readers as a broad overview of this vibrant literature and for scholars as a reliable reference work.

A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book Spanish American novels of the Boom period (1962-1967) attracted a world readership to Latin American literature, but Latin American writers had already been engaging in the modernist experiments of their North American and European counterparts since the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, the desire to be "modern" is a constant preoccupation in twentieth-century Spanish American literature and thus a very useful lens through which to view the century's novels. In this pathfinding study, Raymond L. Williams offers the first complete analytical and critical overview of the Spanish American novel throughout the entire twentieth century. Using the desire to be modern as his organizing principle, he divides the century's novels into five periods and discusses the differing forms that "the modern" took in each era. For each period, Williams begins with a broad overview of many novels, literary contexts, and some cultural debates, followed by new readings of both canonical and significant non-canonical novels. A special feature of this book is its emphasis on women writers and other previously ignored and/or marginalized authors, including experimental and gay writers. Williams also clarifies the legacy of the Boom, the Postboom, and the Postmodern as he introduces new writers and new novelistic trends of the 1990s.

Excerpts from criticism of the works of novelists, poets, playwrights, and other creative writers, 1900-1960.

Series Editor: Herbert Sussman, Northeastern University The volumes in this series examine significant literary foundations of the novel, by applying the most recent critical approaches: Marxism, feminism, structuralism, and others. Each volume surveys a specific novel-writing tradition, and includes: A chronology listing publication dates of major novels, birth and death dates of novelists, and dates of significant events An introductory overview of the novels and their critical reception A summary of the state of the criticism Primary and secondary source bibliographies

Essays on nineteenth-century American fiction writers that suggest a depth and richness marked by both national expansion and regional division. Includes coverage of neglected writers, marking the first meaningful assessment of their lives and roles inthe literary and cultural history of the United States. Contains discussions of two genres, the detective story and the supernatural tale.

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide career biographies of nearly fifty modern Spanish American poets, each tracing the development of the author's canon and the evolution of his or her reputation, and including a bibliography of works.

This award-winning series systematically presents career biographies of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types of literature and time periods.