The Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel

A stimulating collection of new essays on the development of the novel in Latin America.

Efraín Kristal (Edited by)

9780521532198, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 May 2005

360 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.568 kg

'No corner of the continent remains untouched in the Cambridge Companion. … This much-needed book … illuminates the literary contribution to the Spanish-speaking nations of the western hemisphere and Portuguese-speaking Brazil, while offering a broad overview of the novel's history and a sense of its heterogeneity.' The Times Literary Supplement

The diverse countries of Latin America have produced a lively and ever evolving tradition of novels, many of which are read in translation all over the world. This Companion offers a broad overview of the novel's history and analyses in depth several representative works by, for example, Gabriel García Márquez, Machado de Assis, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa. The essays collected here offer several entryways into the understanding and appreciation of the Latin American novel in Spanish-speaking America and Brazil. The volume conveys a real sense of the heterogeneity of Latin American literature, highlighting regions whose cultural and geopolitical particularities are often overlooked. Indispensable to students of Latin American or Hispanic studies and those interested in comparative literature and the development of the novel as genre, the Companion features a comprehensive bibliography and chronology and concludes with an essay about the success of Latin American novels in translation.

Introduction Efraín Kristal
Part I. History: 1. The nineteenth-century Latin American novel Naomi Lindstrom
2. The regional novel and beyond Brian Gollnick
3. The boom of the Latin American novel John King
4. The post-boom novel Philip Swanson
Part II. Heterogeneity: 5. The Brazilian novel Piers Armstrong
6. The Caribbean novel William Luis
7. The Andean novel Ismael Marquez
8. The Central American novel Roy C. Boland Osegueda
Part III. Gender and Sexuality: 9. Gender studies Catherine Davies
10. The lesbian and gay novel in Latin America Daniel Balderston and José Maristany
Part IV. Six Novels: 11. Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis Marta Peixoto
12. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo Jason Wilson
13. The Passion according to G. H. by Clarice Lispector Claire Williams
14. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez Steven Boldy
15. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Stephen Hart
16. The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa Michelle Clayton
Part V. Epilogue: 17. The Latin American novel in English translation Suzanne Jill Levine
Bibliography Kelly Austin and Ryan Kernan.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]