The Untimely Present: Postdictatorial Latin American Fiction and the Task of Mourning Idelber Avelar
Avelar starts by offering new readings of works produced before the dictatorship era, in what is often considered the boom of Latin American fiction. Distancing himself from previous celebratory interpretations, he understands the boom as a manifestation of mourning for literatures declining aura. Against this background, Avelar offers a reassessment of testimonial forms, social scientific theories of authoritarianism, current transformations undergone by the university, and an analysis of a number of novels by some of todays foremost Latin American writerssuch as Ricardo Piglia, Silviano Santiago, Diamela Eltit, Joao Gilberto Noll, and Tununa Mercado. Avelar shows how the untimely quality of these narratives is related to the position of literature itself, a mode of expression threatened with obsolescence.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of Latin American literature and politics, cultural studies, and comparative literature, as well as to all those interested in the role of literature in postmodernity.