Literary Criticism, Latin America

Literature and Resistance in Guatemala
Textual Modes and Cultural Politics from El Señor Presidente to Rigoberta Menchú
By Marc Zimmerman

What circumstances lead writers in a poor, multi-ethnic and largely illiterate country to produce a literature that both expresses and affects opposition to the regime? Who are these writers? This study examines these and other questions about the literature of resistance in Guatemala, from the days of Estrada Cabrera up to the events of May and June of 1993.Zimmerman

The Carnivalesque Defunto
Death and the Dead in Modern Brazilian Literature
By Robert H. Moser

The Carnivalesque Defunto explores the representations of death and the dead in Brazil’s collective and literary imagination. The recurring stereotype of Brazil as the land of samba, soccer, and sandy beaches overlooks a more complex cultural heritage in which, since colonial times, a relationship of proximity and reciprocity has been cultivated between the living and the dead.Robert

Writing Women in Central America
Gender and the Fictionalization of History
By Laura Barbas-Rhoden

What is the relationship between history and fiction in a place with a contentious past? And of what concern is gender in the telling of stories about that past?Writing Women in Central America explores these questions as it considers key Central American texts. This study analyzes how authors appropriate history to confront the rhetoric of the state, global economic powers, and even dissident groups within their own cultures.

Writing Women in Central America
Gender and the Fictionalization of History
By Laura Barbas-Rhoden

What is the relationship between history and fiction in a place with a contentious past? And of what concern is gender in the telling of stories about that past?Writing Women in Central America explores these questions as it considers key Central American texts. This study analyzes how authors appropriate history to confront the rhetoric of the state, global economic powers, and even dissident groups within their own cultures.

Literature and Resistance in Guatemala
Textual Modes and Cultural Politics from El Señor Presidente to Rigoberta Menchú
By Marc Zimmerman

What circumstances lead writers in a poor, multi-ethnic and largely illiterate country to produce a literature that both expresses and affects opposition to the regime? Who are these writers? This study examines these and other questions about the literature of resistance in Guatemala, from the days of Estrada Cabrera up to the events of May and June of 1993.Zimmerman

Claribel Alegría and Central American Literature
Critical Essays
Edited by Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval and Marcia Phillips McGowan

These essays examine the multifaceted work of the Central American author whom Latin American literary historians consider precursor of “cultural dialogism” in poetry and fiction. As poet, essayist, journalist, novelist, and writer of “quasi–testimonio,” Alegría’s multiple discourses transgress the boundaries between traditional and postmodern political theories and practices.

The Tension of Paradox
José Donoso’s the Obscene Bird of Night As Spiritual Exercises
By Pamela May Finnegan

Pamela Finnegan provides a detailed criticism of a major novel written by one of Chile’s leading literary figures. She analyzes the symbolism and the use of language in The Obscene Bird of Night, showing that the novel’s world becomes an icon characterized by entropy, parody, and materiality.