Disaster Writing: The Cultural Politics of Catastrophe in Latin America by Mark D Anderson (review)

The topic of disaster and how it affects the understanding of a nation’s history, identity, and literary expression is the basis for Mark D. Anderson’s Disaster Writing: The Cultural Politics of Catastrophe in Latin America, which centers on several Latin American countries. The introduction to the four core essays provides a meaningful contextualization that distills the topic and trope of disaster while it also establishes the different consequences of both human-made disasters and natural ones. Thus, it sets the overall framework for the effects of the natural disasters discussed in the subsequent chapters. The analyzed catastrophic events per chapter are: 1) cyclone San Zenón in the Dominican Republic, 2) drought in Northeastern Brazil, 3) volcanic eruptions in Central America, and 4) the 1985 earthquake in Mexico. All the chapters, therefore, assess natural disasters and how they are appropriated by discourse, be it national, nationalistic, literary, or political. However, not all natural disasters are appropriated alike, just as not all of them represent the same level of severity, contingency, or rupture. Accordingly, each essay evaluates the impact and resonance of the catastrophic event studied within the particular context of the country or countries affected.

Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes appear to be sudden and perhaps not as predictable as the trajectory of a hurricane. Area droughts, like volcanoes, however, are part of the geographical landscape and geophysical climate, respectively. While some of the features may overlap among these dramatic events—and while all disasters leave an imprint on the area and people affected—each one has its unique features and discourse developed within the geopolitical and cultural context where it occurs. This is one of the principal merits of Disaster Writing: its nuanced research on the repercussions and peculiarities of each of the four catastrophic events that constitute the core of the study. At the same time, this thoughtful sample provides the reader with an adequate overview of how these disasters have been absorbed on several levels, from the political to the literary.

The first chapter focuses on the “leveling effect” (37) of the cyclone that in 1930 struck the Dominican Republic and how it served “as a key trope in the narrative legitimizing” Trujillo’s power to the point of even renaming Santo Domingo (29). The following chapter is dedicated to the experience of drought in Northeastern Brazil and its influence on the literary production with naturalistic overtones in reference to the “harsh environment” of the region (76). In “Volcanic Identities,” the emphasis is on the inherent connection between the presence and trope of the volcano, and the physical terrain that informs a sense of identity in Central America, deeply connected to the idea of physical and metaphorical rupture. As the author points out, “volcanic land embodies the potential for explosive transformation rather than the immutable roundedness that one normally associates with emplaced identities” (108). The fourth chapter analyzes the response given to the 1985 earthquake in Mexico, a chapter keenly posited in the study, given that, while a hurricane allowed Trujillo in the Dominican Republic to assert control with a paternalistic approach (as discussed in the opening chapter), the earthquake in Mexico City revealed that “the government was as shocked by the earthquake as the rest of Mexico City’s inhabitants were: many of its institutional buildings collapsed . . .” (153). Therefore, a surge in crónicas about the event, together with the individual and collective responses (or lack of support thereof) to it, ultimately allowed for further critique and political reflection on the matter. In each chapter, the ranging levels of severity, contingency, or rupture of each particular catastrophe are addressed, underscoring how each one relates specifically to the geophysical, political, and cultural landscape of the regions impacted.

Anderson concludes: “Every disaster compels those who are affected to generate new, localized, narratives, whether written or not, to come to terms with their experience of the catastrophe” (191). This...