A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture (review)

Known primarily for its essays on British literature, Blackwell Editorial's "Companion" collection now launches an exploration of Latin American literature and culture in this fifty-third volume in the series. Its thirty-eight essays are ordered chronologically, ranging from a study of pre-Colombian migration patterns of indigenous peoples to twenty-first century rock music (Gustavo Verdesio), film, and digital video (Freya Shiwy). While each essay in this huge undertaking deserves attention for its own content and merits, three overarching concepts that define current trends in Latin American studies demand particular comment: the linking of culture and literature, a broader definition of writing, and descolonización.

Literature no longer seems a stand-alone field of study, and maybe it never really was. In fact, while the title privileges literature by listing it first, "Culture and Literature" are more the order of the day; more importantly, the copulative conjunction and really plays the most significant role as it subtly melds the two together. One of the studies that best illustrates the interconnectedness of literature and culture is Gerald Martin's "The 'Boom' of Spanish-American fiction and the 1960s Revolutions (1958–75)," bracketing the time period between the Cuban Revolution and the Chilean coup of September 1973. Here, the political history of the period serves not only as the context but as the content and very essence of its being. Martin's evaluation of the seventeen-year period explains why the "Boom" created such worldwide shock waves and how literature and culture began its fusion. Like the period of the mid-sixties itself, the Boom joined identity politics (nationality, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) with national politics and conflicts (capitalist, communist, and ex-colonial). Rather than analyzing individual works, Martin identifies four principal writers and their key works as the mainstays of the period: Carlos Fuentes's La region más transparente (1958) and La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962); Julio Cortázar's Rayuela (1963); Mario Vargas Llosa's La ciudad y los perros (1962) and La Casa Verde (1966); and Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad (1967), which "consecrated the Boom forever, [and] was also Latin America's first great postmodern novel" (486). Postmodernism, initiated by the Boom, is epitomized by the fusion of literature and culture.

The very definition of literature itself is also a core element of A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture. Lead essays by editor Sara Castro-Klaren raise our awareness that all writing is not alphabetic, a dominant paradigm arising from Ángel Rama's concept of the "lettered city" that encompasses the interconnection between political power and alphabetic writing. Yes, there are some familiar literary genres studied, such as poetry (Stephen M. Hart) and the Gauchesca (Abril Trigo), but Latin American communication often doesn't rely on the European alphabet at all, as Castro-Klaren illustrates with an historical discussion of Andean khipus, the knotted cords that messengers carried on foot from one town to the next that recorded mathematical calculations and folkloric stories. Memory can be transmitted through keros drinking vessels, dance, phonetic glyphs (Castro-Klaren), and architecture (Lisa DeLeonardis). Probably the most shining and obvious example of visual communication that serves a political role without relying on the alphabet is Mexican mural art. While it can be considered primarily a cultural essay, "The Mexican Revolution and the Plastic Arts" (Horacio Legras) illuminates the national art of Orozco, Siqueiros, and Rivera and its outreach to the "popular and destitute portions of the Mexican people" (381) and indigenous races.

Walter Mignolo's preamble, "The Historical Foundation of Modernity/Coloniality and the Emergence of Decolonial Thinking," exemplifies the growing importance of decolonization as a central theme in understanding contemporary Latin America. In contrast to Euro-American modernity, decolonized knowledge and literatures—in whatever form they are recorded—are valued and venerated, freeing subaltern silenced and neglected peoples, events, and cultures from the rigid strictures and structures imposed...