Lat AM Boom (In English)

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, a remarkable array of fiction writers emerged in Latin America with novels and short stories that changed the course of world literature. This phenomenon, known as the Boom, includes multiple winners of the Nobel Prize and continues to impact literary production around the world today. This course offers students the opportunity to read major works of the Boom in translation into the language of their choice or in the original Spanish. All classroom discussions will be in English. Papers can be written in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French. Along with exploring the details of each text in depth, students will dissect and question critical concepts often applied to this era of literary production, such as “magic realism” and the idea of a “Boom” per se. Texts will include Aura by Carlos Fuentes, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa, Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, and various short fictions by Miguel Ángel Asturias, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo, and Julio Cortázar. The course will be taught as a seminar, so high levels of student participation will be expected. Requirements will include two oral presentations, three essays, and a field trip.