The Postmodern in Latin and Latino American Cultural Narratives

Book excerpt: This volume of new and reprinted articles, many translated here into English for the first time, examines the conditions, characteristics, and implications of the debate on Latin American Postmodernism, presenting an up-to-date rendering of its crucial issues. Special considerations are given to the theoretical aspects, such as ideological, political, literary-critical, and cultural implications. The scope of this debate embraces such matters as the problematic modernization of Latin America, cultural and political reformulation in the face of the media explosion, new critical perspectives facing the collapse of utopian ideologies, and new literary production: women's writing, and testimonio. Contributors include John Beverly, Antonio Ben'tez-Rojo and Antonio Vera-Le-n, Celeste Olalquiaga, Arturo Arias, Santiago Col s, Nelly Richard, Jesoes Mart'n-Barbero, Iumna Maria Simon, and Vinicius Dantas. The collection also contains some of the editor's personal interviews with scholars involved in this debate who live and work in Latin America: Roger Bartra and Jorge Juanes (Mexico), and Nicol s Casullo (Argentina).