The Novel in the Americas

The Novel in the Americas contains thirteen provocative and timely essays by leading writers and scholars of the Americas. These essays touch deeply on issues regarding the role of art and critical thought in modern, or postmodern cultures. All of the writers cross and question boundaries - geographic, linguistic, and disciplinary - in their reflections on where we are today, where we have been, and where we can possibly go at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Included are works by Carlos Fuentes, Maxine Hong Kingston, William H. Gass, Larry McCaffrey, and others. "Every writer names the world. But the Latin American writer has been possessed by the urgency to discover," states Carlos Fuentes in the opening lines of this volume. Fuentes and a host of other distinguished intellectuals have been possessed by this urgency to discover, and the equally "possessed" Critical Studies of the Americas Committee of the University of Colorado at Boulder has spent four years organizing an inter-American dialog on the novel and the cultures of the Americas. This book presents a selection of some of the most fascinating moments of this multicultural exchange. The Novel in the Americas is the first volume in a new series from The Critical Studies of the Americas Committee. Each volume will provide interdisciplinary views on the Americas, North and South, as seen by major scholars from throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada.