Gabriel Garcia Marquez

-- Brings together the best criticism on the most widely read poets, novelists, and playwrights
-- Presents complex critical portraits of the most influential writers in the English-speaking world -- from the English medievalists to contemporary writers

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez had already earned tremendous respect and popularity in the years leading up to that honor, and remains, to date, an active and prolific writer. Readers are introduced to Garcia Marquez with a vivid account of his fascinating life; from his friendships with poets and presidents, to his distinguished career as a journalist, novelist, and chronicler of the quintessential Latin American experience. This companion also helps students situate Garcia Marquez within the canon of Western literature, exploring his contributions to the modern novel in general, and his forging of literary techniques, particularly magic realism, that have come to distinguish Latin American fiction.

A unique anthology of eight Latin American novellas by major modern writers that enables the reader to really experience the work of each writer. A who's who of Latin American literature: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ana Lydia Vega, G. Cabrera Infante, Alvaro Mutis, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortazar, Joao Guimaraes Rosa, and Felisberto Hernandez.

Though there are a number of anthologies of Latin American literature which contain numerous short selections and include many writers, the brevity of the selections doesn't allow the reader to savor, feel, or comprehend the writer's style and work. What is needed is a selective group of examples of short fiction by major Latin American writers which will introduce the reader to works of sufficient length so that it's possible to really experience each writer. The novellas included are distinctive and demonstrate the richness of contemporary Latin American literature and offer a variety of style, theme, tone, and subject. Further, the writers included have all been critically praised and widely recognized. The novella by Joao Guimaraes Rosa is published here for the first time in English. There are short biographies of the eight authors included at the end of the book.

"A superb anthology! For readers who know nothing about Latin American fiction and for readers who think they know everything, these eight novellas will be a treat". Ariel Dorfman Duke University

"A wonderful introduction to some of the best work of the

This insider's account of Colombia's culture and customs helps the reader develop a balanced view of Colombian life today. Colombia has the longest-standing democratic political system in Latin America, but it is also one of the most violent nations in the world. The full gamut of its culture--both positive and negative--is revealed in this insightful book that is ideal for student research. The authors highlight the most notable aspects of contemporary Colombian culture including coffee production, Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, painter Fernando Botero, vallenato music, and the notorious drug cartels.

Body of Writing focuses on the traces that an author's "body" leaves on a work of fiction. Drawing on the work of six important Spanish American writers of the twentieth century, Rene Prieto examines narratives that reflect -- in differing yet ultimately complementary ways -- the imprint of the author's body, thereby disclosing insights about power, aggression, transgression, and eroticism.

Healthy, invalid, lustful, and confined bodies -- as portrayed by Julio Cortazar, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Severo Sarduy, Rosario Castellanos, and Tununa Mercado -- become evidence for Roland Barthes's contention that works of fiction are "anagrams of the body". Claiming that an author's intentions can be uncovered by analyzing "the topography of a text", Prieto pays particular attention not to the actions or plots of these writers' fiction but rather to their settings and characterizations. In the belief that bodily traces left on the page reveal the motivating force behind a writer's creative act, he explores such fictional themes as camouflage, deterioration, defilement, entrapment, and subordination. Along the way, Prieto reaches unexpected conclusions regarding topics that include the relationship of the female body to power, male and female transgressive impulses, and the connection between aggression, the idealization of women, and anal eroticism in men.

This study of how authors' longings and fears become embodied in literature will interest students and scholars of literary and psychoanalytic criticism, gender studies, and twentieth-century and Latin American literature.

Myth and Archive presents a new theory of the origin and evolution of Latin American literature and the emergence of the modern novel. In this influential, award-winning exploration of Latin American writing from colonial times to the present, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria dispenses with traditional literary history to reveal the indebted relationship of the novel to legal, scientific, and anthropological discourses.

Providing ways to link literary and nonliterary narratives, Gonzalez Echevarria examines a variety of archival writings -- from the chronicles of the discovery and conquest of the New World to scientific travel narratives and records of criminal confessions -- and explores the relationship of these writings to novels by authors such as Garcia Marquez, Borges, Barnet, Sarmiento, Carpentier, and Garcilaso de la Vega. Moving beyond demonstrating that early forms of creative narrative had their geneses in the sixteenth-century authoritative discourse of the Spanish Empire, Gonzalez Echevarria shows,how this same originating process has been repeated in other key moments in the history of the Latin American narrative. He shows how the discourse of scientific discovery was the model for much nineteenth-century literature, as well as how anthropological writings on the nature of language and myth have come to shape the ideology and form of literature in the twentieth century. This most recent form of Latin American narrative creates its own mythic form through an atavistic return to its legal origins -- the archive.

This acclaimed book -- originally published in 1990 -- will be of continuing interest to historians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and students of LatinAmerican culture.

Working deliberately against the grain of assumptions dominant in the contemporary literary academy, Boyers examines novels by Gunter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera and others, arguing that it is necessary to speak of character, ethics, and philosophic purpose if one is to understand these works. A penetrating study, Atrocity and Amnesia illuminates some of the major fiction of our time and makes an important contribution to contemporary political thought.