Okay, I *must* get a copy of the latest Zoetrope: it's an all-Latino edition with some awesome contributors, such as Daniel Alarcon, Ines Bortagaray, Guillermo Del Toro, Daniel Olivas, Diego Trelles Paz, Carolina Sanin, Veronica Stigger.
Don't expect a goldmine of magical realism here; instead, you may very well find influences from Gabo, but this collection means to show the broad strokes of Latin American fiction in a contemporary, post-MR landscape.
I think an English rendering of Latino creative writing is long overdue if only to show that it's not just "all MR, all the time" with them.
Sure, Alberto Fuguet did his part to bash stereotypes with McOndo five years ago, but his vehement disdain for MR through the use of spoof as storytelling device probably only exacerbated matters. Mostly, it didn't change the perspectives of mainstream English-language readers in the US, who still equate Latin American writing with MR (and vice versa, though less so from this angle).
This collection by Z, however, might just do the job, and if so, that would be a very good thing indeed.
Don't expect a goldmine of magical realism here; instead, you may very well find influences from Gabo, but this collection means to show the broad strokes of Latin American fiction in a contemporary, post-MR landscape.
I think an English rendering of Latino creative writing is long overdue if only to show that it's not just "all MR, all the time" with them.
Sure, Alberto Fuguet did his part to bash stereotypes with McOndo five years ago, but his vehement disdain for MR through the use of spoof as storytelling device probably only exacerbated matters. Mostly, it didn't change the perspectives of mainstream English-language readers in the US, who still equate Latin American writing with MR (and vice versa, though less so from this angle).
This collection by Z, however, might just do the job, and if so, that would be a very good thing indeed.
1 comments:
Oh, I wish I did have a story in this special issue of Zoetrope. But I did interview Daniel Alarcon about the issue earlier this week over at La Bloga:
http://labloga.blogspot.com/2009/03/zoetrope-all-story-goes-latin-american.html
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