Latin America through the Literary Looking-Glass, And What Bolaño Found There

• Authors: Arnoldas Stramskas
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article provides a broad overview of social, economic, and cultural politics in Latin America, especially concentrating on what became known as the Latin American literary “boom” in the 1960s and 1970s, and the region’s political context - colonial past, neocolonial/neoliberal present, the role of intellectuals within the state and cultural affairs. The second part focuses on Roberto Bolaño - the writer who put Latin American literature on the world map which has not been seen since the boom years - and his novel The Savage Detectives. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that literature not only shares common elements and possible intentions with social and political critique, but that it can also be an effective form of social and political criticism. In such a case, Bolaño’s work may be read not as inferior fictional account but as a complex, intersectional investigation of socioeconomic as well as ontological condition in Latin America that other modes of inquiry may overlook.

LT

Šis straipsnis plačiai apžvelgia socialinę, ekonominę ir kultūrinę politiką Lotynų Amerikoje, skiriant daug dėmesio septintojo ir aštuntojo dešimtmečio literatūrinio „bumo” fenomenui, bei regiono politiniam kontekstui - kolonijinei praeičiai, neokolinijinei/ neoliberaliai dabarčiai, intelektualų rolei valdžios ir kultūros sferose. Antroji straipsnio dalis koncentruojasi ties Roberto Bolaño (ir jo romanu Pašėlę detektyvai), rašytoju, kuris paženklino Lotynų Ameriką pasauliniame literatūros žemėlapyje mastu, panašiu į sėkmingiausius bumo pavyzdžius. Šio straipsnio tikslas yra parodyti, kad literatūra ne tik gali sietis bendrais elementais ir galimais tikslais su socialine ir politine kritika, bet kad ir gali būti efektyvi sociopolitinės kritikos forma. Tokiu atveju, Bolaño darbai gali būti perskaityti ne tik kaip antrarūšė fi kcija, bet kaip ir daugiasluoksnis tyrimas apie socioekenominę bei ontologinę Lotynų Amerikos būklę, kurios kiti tyrimo būdai gali ir neužčiuopti.

Keywords

EN

Latin America; Roberto Bolaño; lines of flight; literature; cultural politics

LT

Lotynų Amerika; Roberto Bolaño; vengimo linijos; literatūra; kultūros politika

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: International Journal of Area Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 51-74

Dates

published

2014-03-01

online

2014-04-09

Contributors

author

Arnoldas Stramskas

• VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY

References

• Agamben, G., 2011. Nudities. Translated by D. Kishik and S. Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Alonso, C. J., 1990. The Spanish American Regional Novel: Modernity and Autochtony.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Avelar, I., 1999. The Untimely Present: Postdictatorial Latin American Fiction and the Task of Mourning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Benjamin, W., 1969. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Translated by H. Zohn.New York: Schocken Books.
• Blanchot, M., 1995. The Work of Fire. Translated by C. Mandell. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Bogue, R., 2010. Deleuzian Fabulation and the Scars of History. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Bolaño, R., 2006. Amulet. Translated by C. Andrews. New York: New Directions.
• Bolaño, R., 2009. The Last Interview and Other Conversations Translated by S. Perez. New York: Melville House.
• Bolaño, R., 2011. Between Parenthses: Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998-2003. Translated by N. Wimmer. New York: New Directions.
• Bolaño, R., 2010. Insufferable Gaucho. Translated by C. Andrews. New York: New Directions. 2010.
• Bruns, G. L., 2006. On the Anarchy of Poetry and Philosophy: A Guide for the Unruly. New York: Fordham University Press.
• Canclini, N. G., 2004. Aesthetic Moments of Latin Americanism. In Radical History Review, 89, pp. 13-24.
• Castañeda, J., G. 1993. Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War. New York: Vintage Books.
• Critchley, S., 2002. On Humour. London and New York: Routledge.
• De Castro, J. E,. 2008. The Spaces of Latin American Literature: Tradition, Globalization, and Cultural Production. New York and Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.[WoS]
• Deleuze, G., 1997. Essays Critical and Clinical. Translated by D. W. Smith and M.A. Greco. London and New York: Verso.
• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by D. Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F,. 2004. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.Translated by B. Massumi. London: Continuum.
• Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 2011. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by R. Hurley, R. Seem, and H.R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Donoso, J., 1977. The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History. Translated by G. Kolovakos. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Echevarría, R. G., 2012. Modern Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Guattari, F., 1996. The Guattari Reader. Edited by G. Genosko. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
• Hardt, M. and Negri, A., 2000. Empire. Cambridge and London: Harward University Press.
• Harvey, D., 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Klein, N., 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books.
• López-Vicuña, I., 2009. The Violence of Writing: Literature and Discontent in Roberto Bolaño’s “Chilean” Novels. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesia, 18(2-3), pp. 155-166.[Crossref][WoS]
• Meter, A., 2004. Before and After the Boom: Recent Scholarship on Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies. Latin American Research Review, 39(2), pp. 155-163.[Crossref]
• Mignolo, W. D., 2005. The Idea of Latin America. Malden, Oxford, and Victoria: Blackwell Publishing.
• Nancy, J. L., 1991. The Inoperative Community. Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press.
• Quijano, A. and Wallerstein, I., 1992. Americanity as a Concept, or the Americas in the Modern World-System. International Social Sciences Journal, 134, pp. 549-557.
• Rodriguez, F., 2010. Unsettledness and Doublings in Roberto Bolaño’s Estrella distante. Revista Hispanica Moderna, 63(2), pp. 203-218.
• Wimmer, N., 2012. “The Savage Detectives” in The Savage Detectives. New York: Picador.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ijas-2014-0004