Preface

The modern novel in Latin America has been in the spotlight of an international reading public since the 1960s. Writers such as Nobel laureates Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Miguel Angel Asturias, and Pablo Neruda have done much to place Latin American writing at the forefront of world literature. Latin American literature, however, belongs to a tradition that precedes these four writers and the 1960s.In the present volume, I introduce and analyze the nove1 in Latin America since the rise of modernist fiction in the region in the mid-1940s.

In part 1 “The Rise of the Modernist Novel (1945-- 1957)," I review modernist fiction since the 1940s, with the main focus on the l2-year period after 1945. After an introductory chapter on modernist fiction in Latin America, I continue with chapters on the fiction of the Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias (chapter 2), the Mexican Agustin Yanez (chapter 3), and the Cuban Alejo Carpenter (chapter 4). In chapter 5, I discuss the novels of two writes from the River Plate region, the Argentine Leopoldo Marechal and the Uruguayan Juan Carfos Onetti. Chapter 6 deals with the fiction of four modernist writers from Brazil.

Part 2 deals with the modernist Boom with the main focus on the novelistic production that appeared from l958 to 1967. After an introduction to the Boom (chapter 7), I cover the novels of Carlos Fuentes (chapter 8), Julio Cortazar (chapter 9), Mario Vargas Llosa(chapter 10). and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (chapter 11). Chapter 12 deals with four accomplished writers of this period who were not Part of the Boom: the Chilean Jose Donoso, the Brazilians Clarice Lispector and Joao Guimaraes Rosa, and the Venezuelan Salvador Garmendia.

In part 3, “The Postmodern Novel,” I discuss the most innovative fiction to appear in the region since 1968. After an introduction to postmodern fiction in Latin America, I provide an overview of postmodern fiction in South America (chapter 14) and in Mexico and the Caribbean (chapter 15). In chapter l6, I offer concluding remarks about the modern and postmodern novel in Latin America as well as about a recent variant on the postmodern that I identify as the postnational novel.

Several recent studies on the modern novel in Latin America have been exceptionally valuable for this book. Most important, I have drawn from John S. Brushwood's landmark book The Spanish American Novel: A Twentieth Century Survey (1975), which provides an analytical overview of the Spanish American novel from 1900 to 1970. Naond Lindstrorm's well-informed study Twentieth-Century Spanish American Fiction (l994) was also quite useful in the research for the present book. Conceptually, this volume also represents, in some ways, a continuation of studies that I had initiated with The Colombian Novel: 1844-1987 (1991) and The Postmodern Novel in Latin America (1995).

Throughout the book, English titles are given for novels that have been translated into English, followed by the date of the original publication in Spanish. When novels have not been translated, I use the Spanish title, followed by my English translation of it in parentheses.

The completion of this book was possible only with the support of certain individuals as well as the generous editing work of several colleagues. The timely support of my wife, Pamela, and the dean of the College of Humanities, Art and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, Carlos Velez Ibanez, were essentia1 to this book's completion in the autumn of 1997. Professors John S. Brushwood, William Megenney George McMurray and Donald Schmidt Provided valuable editorial suggestions. I patticu1arly appreciate the improvements to the manuscript suggested by Professor Herb Sussman. Nevertheless, the final content of this study is mine, as are any errors of judgment or fact.