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""A superbly written and effectively organized book that defines an innovative scholarly project and represents a timely contribution to the current debates on world literature. Conducted through the lens of canon and canonicity, it underscores the indispensable role of literary history for grasping the complexity and contradictions of canon formation. It reframes the histories of western canon in order to call attention to the foundational contributions of Latin American writers such as Borges, García Márquez, and Bolaño. It carries out a superb analysis of the specific cultural and political iconography developed through the writings of these authors as well as contemporary Indigenous intellectuals from Guatemala and Perú."" --Gorica Majstorovic, author of Global South Modernities: Modernist Literature and the Avant-Garde in Latin America ""Masterfully exploring the intersection of Latin American literature with the Western canon, De Castro concentrates mainly on three masters who not only are representative of the evolution of this region's fiction but have also become part of the Western canon and world literature, all the while theorizing the canon and their own relationship to it: Borges, who assimilated 1910s and 1920s modernist and avant-garde European literature; García Márquez, who responded to 1950s modernist narrative; and Bolaño, with his post-national and postmodern novels. From the impact of Bloom's theories on Hispanic criticism, to Borges's irreverent ideas on how peripheral authors can freely use the ""Western tradition,"" and the under-examined impact of Kafka in the region, passing through García Márquez's dialogue with Western modernist classics and Bolaño's surprisingly traditional view of the canon, and closing with the recent explosion of Indigenous writing in Spanish and other languages, this study is a true eye-opener that will challenge the reader's assumptions by disclosing how these Latin American authors concomitantly subverted the Western canon and old Western stereotypes about the region."" --Ignacio López-Calvo, author of Written in Exile: Chilean Fiction from 1973-Present

A superbly written and effectively organized book that defines an innovative scholarly project and represents a timely contribution to the current debates on world literature. Conducted through the lens of canon and canonicity, it underscores the indispensable role of literary history for grasping the complexity and contradictions of canon formation. It reframes the histories of western canon in order to call attention to the foundational contributions of Latin American writers such as Borges, Garcia Marquez, and Bolano. It carries out a superb analysis of the specific cultural and political iconography developed through the writings of these authors as well as contemporary Indigenous intellectuals from Guatemala and Peru. --Gorica Majstorovic, author of Global South Modernities: Modernist Literature and the Avant-Garde in Latin America Masterfully exploring the intersection of Latin American literature with the Western canon, De Castro concentrates mainly on three masters who not only are representative of the evolution of this region's fiction but have also become part of the Western canon and world literature, all the while theorizing the canon and their own relationship to it: Borges, who assimilated 1910s and 1920s modernist and avant-garde European literature; Garcia Marquez, who responded to 1950s modernist narrative; and Bolano, with his post-national and postmodern novels. From the impact of Bloom's theories on Hispanic criticism, to Borges's irreverent ideas on how peripheral authors can freely use the Western tradition, and the under-examined impact of Kafka in the region, passing through Garcia Marquez's dialogue with Western modernist classics and Bolano's surprisingly traditional view of the canon, and closing with the recent explosion of Indigenous writing in Spanish and other languages, this study is a true eye-opener that will challenge the reader's assumptions by disclosing how these Latin American authors concomitantly subverted the Western canon and old Western stereotypes about the region. --Ignacio Lopez-Calvo, author of Written in Exile: Chilean Fiction from 1973-Present

Masterfully exploring the intersection of Latin American literature with the Western canon, De Castro concentrates mainly on three masters who not only are representative of the evolution of this region's fiction but have also become part of the Western canon and world literature, all the while theorizing the canon and their own relationship to it: Borges, who assimilated 1910s and 1920s modernist and avant-garde European literature; Garcia Marquez, who responded to 1950s modernist narrative; and Bolano, with his post-national and postmodern novels. From the impact of Bloom's theories on Hispanic criticism, to Borges's irreverent ideas on how peripheral authors can freely use the Western tradition, and the under-examined impact of Kafka in the region, passing through Garcia Marquez's dialogue with Western modernist classics and Bolano's surprisingly traditional view of the canon, and closing with the recent explosion of indigenous writing in Spanish and other languages, this study is a true eye-opener that will challenge the reader's assumptions by disclosing how these Latin American authors concomitantly subverted the Western canon and old Western stereotypes about the region. --Ignacio Lopez-Calvo, author of Written in Exile: Chilean Fiction from 1973-Present A superbly written and effectively organized book that defines an innovative scholarly project and represents a timely contribution to the current debates on world literature. Conducted through the lens of canon and canonicity, it underscores the indispensable role of literary history for grasping the complexity and contradictions of canon formation. It reframes the histories of western canon in order to call attention to the foundational contributions of Latin American writers such as Mariategui, Borges, Garcia Marquez, and Bolano. It carries out a superb analysis of the specific cultural and political iconography developed through the writings of these authors as well as contemporary indigenous intellectuals from Guatemala and Peru. --Gorica Majstorovic, author of Global South Modernities: Modernist Literature and the Avant-Garde in Latin America

"""A superbly written and effectively organized book that defines an innovative scholarly project and represents a timely contribution to the current debates on world literature. Conducted through the lens of canon and canonicity, it underscores the indispensable role of literary history for grasping the complexity and contradictions of canon formation. It reframes the histories of western canon in order to call attention to the foundational contributions of Latin American writers such as Borges, García Márquez, and Bolaño. It carries out a superb analysis of the specific cultural and political iconography developed through the writings of these authors as well as contemporary Indigenous intellectuals from Guatemala and Perú."" --Gorica Majstorovic, author of Global South Modernities: Modernist Literature and the Avant-Garde in Latin America ""Masterfully exploring the intersection of Latin American literature with the Western canon, De Castro concentrates mainly on three masters who not only are representative of the evolution of this region's fiction but have also become part of the Western canon and world literature, all the while theorizing the canon and their own relationship to it: Borges, who assimilated 1910s and 1920s modernist and avant-garde European literature; García Márquez, who responded to 1950s modernist narrative; and Bolaño, with his post-national and postmodern novels. From the impact of Bloom's theories on Hispanic criticism, to Borges's irreverent ideas on how peripheral authors can freely use the ""Western tradition,"" and the under-examined impact of Kafka in the region, passing through García Márquez's dialogue with Western modernist classics and Bolaño's surprisingly traditional view of the canon, and closing with the recent explosion of Indigenous writing in Spanish and other languages, this study is a true eye-opener that will challenge the reader's assumptions by disclosing how these Latin American authors concomitantly subverted the Western canon and old Western stereotypes about the region."" --Ignacio López-Calvo, author of Written in Exile: Chilean Fiction from 1973-Present"

Author Information

Juan E. De Castro is a professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. He is the author of Writing Revolution in Latin America: From Martí to García Márquez to Bolaño and Bread and Beauty: The Cultural Politics of José Carlos Mariátegui, among other works.

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