Description
Book SynopsisThe author analyses six novels of the "boom" in Cuban fiction of the 1990s that subvert homogenized views of Cuban identity. This book examines six Cuban novels published between 1991 and 1999, all part of the new "boom" of the Cuban novel in the 1990s. It analyses how in undermining monolithic representations of reality these texts employ discursive techniques that question absolute truths, defy established boundaries of literary genres and challenge concepts of national, gender and individual identity. The authors studied in this book---Reinaldo Arenas, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, Abilio Estévez, Daína Chaviano, Yanitzia Canetti, and Zoé Valdés---are placed beyond the dichotomy of outside and inside Cuba in order to focus on the fluidity and heterogeneity of Cuban culture displayed in its literature. This study establishes similarities and differences in the way these authors create polyphonic texts that question whether notions of country and nation coincide in novels that respond to economic hardship, political and social changes, issues of cubanía, and exile. Ángela Dorado-Otero is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Iberian and Latin American Studies at Queen Mary University of London.
Trade ReviewThe critical apparatus in [Dorado-Otero's book] is impressive for its detail and complexity. One need not know the history of Cuban literature to see how these novels fit into Cuban reality today. It is interesting to read Dorado-Otero's analysis of women's literary expression vis-à-vis that of the male writers. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Carnival and Simulacra in Reinaldo Arenas's El Color del Verano Transposed Words: Mapping Intertextuality in Leonardo Padura Fuentes's Novel Máscaras The Palimpsestuous (Re)Writing of the Island as a Dialogic Practice: Literature in the Second Degree in Abilio Estévez's Tuyo es el Reino Erotic Discourse: From the Semiotic to the Symbolic in Daína Chaviano's Casa de Juegos (Re)Writing the Body as a Feminine Strategy: Yanitzia Canetti's Al Otro Lado Language Unbound: Zoé Valdés's La Nada Cotidiana Conclusion Appendix 1: First Interview with Leonardo Padura Fuentes (8 March 2004) Appendix 2: Second Interview with Leonardo Padura Fuentes (18 July 2006) Bibliography
