Latin American Literature

Abstract

Course Description This course explores Latin American literature frompre-Columbian times to the present. The prescribed texts include letters, poems, short stories, critical articles and novels by acclaimed authors such as Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, García Márquez, José MaríaArguedas and Borges. Many of them belonged to the Latin AmericanBoom of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Latin American novel became known throughout the world. The course examines literary responses to complex cultural, social and historical problems: conquest, nation building and national identity formation; acculturation, avant-gardism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism; or populism and authoritarianism.