|
"This book is a series of original, critical meditations on short stories and novels from Central America between 1995 and 2016. During the Cold War, literary art in Central America, as in Latin America in general, was strongly over-determined by the politics of the Cold War, which gave rise to popular struggle and three major armed civil wars in the 1970s and 1980s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The period produced intense literary activity with political ideology central, personified by social denunciation in the testimonial novel and revolutionary poetry. Since then, though themes of violence are still at much of its core, Central American fiction has become more complex. We have witnessed a resurgence of literary writing and criticism with a focus squarely on the artistic side of narrative art: writing aware of its own figurative manoeuvres and inventiveness, its philosophical and affective dimensions, and its carefully crafted syntax. This collection of essays by Jeffrey Browitt attempts to trace some of the contours of this new literature and the contemporary subjectivities of its writers through close readings of Guatemala's Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Eduardo Halfon and Denise Phé-Funchal; Nicaragua's Franz Galich and Sergio Ramírez; Belize's David Ruiz Puga; El Salvador's Jacinta Escudos and Claudia Hernández; and Costa Rica's Carlos Cortés. Key themes are gender, subjectivity and affect as these intersect with the deconstruction of the family, hegemonic masculinity, motherhood, revolutionary romanticism, and the relationship of humans with animals" -- Introduction -- PART I Exorcizing the National/Revolutionary Subject Chapter 1 With Crystalline Drops of Imperial Jade: David Ruiz Puga's Got seif de Cuin! Chapter 2 Nicaragua as a Novel: Sergio Ramírez's Margarita, está linda la mar Chapter 3 The Detritus of a Revolution in Ruins: Franz Galich's Managua, Salsa City -- PART 2 Unreconstructed Masculinity and Fantasmatic Fathers Chapter 4 The Sacrificial Economy and the Question of the Anthropocene in Rodrigo Rey Rosa's "Gracia" Chapter 5 The Boy in the Bubble: Eduardo Halfon's Manaña nunca lo hablamos Chapter 6 Carlos Cortés' Larga noche hacia mi madre: The Labyrinth of the Past -- PART III Gendered Bodies and Affects Chapter 7 The Difficulty in Burying the Dead: Claudia Hernández's De fronteras Chapter 8 Love and Sex in Times of Disenchantment: Reading Jacinta Escudos Chapter 9 Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold: Denise Phé-Funchal's Ana sonríe
|
