Description
Book Synopsis By one of the most original and learned critical voices in Hispanic studies— a timely and ambitious study of authority as theme and authority as authorial strategy in modern Latin American literature.
An ideology is implicit in modern Latin American literature, argues Roberto González Echevarría, through which both the literature itself and criticism of it define what Latin American literature is and how it ought to be read. In the works themselves this ideology is constantly subjected to a radical critique, and that critique renders the ideology productive and in a sense is what constitutes the work. In literary criticism, however, too frequently the ideology merely serves as support for an authoritative discourse that seriously misrepresents Latin American literature.
In The Voice of the Masters, González Echevarría attempts to uncover the workings of modern Latin American literature by creating a dialogue of texts, a dynam
Trade Review
. . . a challenging book for the reader, bold, innovative, and profound, as one would expect from Roberto González Echevarría. * Hispanic Review *
...breaks new ground in the interpretation of Latin American literature. * World Literature Today *
Language and authority may well be inseparable. Unfortunately, as these essays point out, the reality of Latin America reflects excessive abuses on both counts. The Voice of the Masters clearly reflects the need for a more pluralistic Latin American society in which divergent ideologies are allowed to be expressed without fear of native or foreign interference. * Times of the Americas *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preamble
- 1. The Case of the Speaking Statue: Ariel and the Magisterial Rhetoric of the Latin American Essay
- 2. Doña Bárbara Writes the Plain
- 3. The Dictatorship of Rhetoric/The Rhetoric of Dictatorship
- 4. Terra Nostra: Theory and Practice
- 5. Los reyes: Cortázar’s Mythology of Writing
- 6. Biografía de un cimarrón and the Novel of the Cuban Revolution
- 7. Literature and Exile: Carpentier’s “Right of Sanctuary”
- “Meta-End,” by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Translated, with an Introduction, Commentary, and Notes
- Notes
- Index
