Conquest of the New Word : : Experimental Fiction and Translation in the Americas / / Johnny Payne.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Payne, Johnny,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Texas Pan American Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (302 p.)

Latin American fiction won great acclaim in the United States during the 1960s, when many North American writers and critics felt that our national writing had reached a low ebb. In this study of experimental fiction from both Americas, Johnny Payne argues that the North American reception of the "boom" in Latin American fiction distorted the historical grounding of this writing, erroneously presenting it as mainly an exotic "magical realism." He offers new readings that detail the specific, historical relation between experimental fiction and various authors' careful, deliberate deformations and reformations of the political rhetoric of the modern state. Payne juxtaposes writers from Argentina and Uruguay with North American authors, setting up suggestive parallels between the diverse but convergent practices of writers on both continents. He considers Nelson Marra in conjunction with Donald Barthelme and Gordon Lish; Teresa Porzecanski with Harry Mathews; Ricardo Piglia with John Barth; Silvia Schmid and Manuel Puig with Fanny Howe and Lydia Davis; and Jorge Luis Borges and Luisa Valenzuela with William Burroughs and Kathy Acker. With this innovative, dual-continent approach, Conquest of the New Word will be of great interest to everyone working in Latin American literature, women's studies, translation studies, creative writing, and cultural theory.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 Conquest of the New Word: U.S. Experimental Fiction, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the Latin American Boom -- CHAPTER 2 Primers of Power: Nelson Marra's "El guardaespalda" and the Uruguayan Military -- CHAPTER 3 Cutting Up History: The Uses of Aleatory Fiction in Teresa Porzecanski and Harry Mathews -- CHAPTER 4 Epistolary Fiction and Intellectual Life in a Shattered Culture: Ricardo Piglia and John Barth -- CHAPTER 5 Letters from Nowhere: Epistolary Fiction and Feminine Identity—Fanny Howe, Silvia Schmid, Lydia Davis, and Manuel Puig -- CHAPTER 6 Rioting Degree Zero: Radical Skepticism and the Retreat from Politics—Jorge Luis Borges, Luisa Valenzuela, Kathy Acker, and William Burroughs -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index