Product Description
Told almost exclusively through dialogue, KONDIDENZ openswith a woman entering a hotel room and receiving a call from amysterious stranger who seems to know everything about her and thereasons why she has fled her homeland. Over the next nine hours hetells her many disturbing things about her lover (who may be in greatdanger), the political situation in which they are enmeshed, and hisfantasies of her. A terse political allegory that challenges ourassumptions about character, the foundations of our knowledge, and themaking of history, KONFIDENZ draws the reader into a postmodernmystery where nothing—including the text itself—is what itseems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A book to be read and reread
Konfidenz is a passionate treatise on love, repression, aesthetics.

The central relationships of the text rip apart the sexuality of government; to start this book requires that you read until you finish it, and read it again many times.

It's not a "hard" read at all--Dorfman's style sometimes borders on austerity, and yet emotionally and intellectually, the work is incredibly challenging.A very poetic sort of prose...

Gripping, Enchanting, Brilliant
This is a magnificent masterpiece.Every human should give themselves the honor of reading this extraordinary work of art.

A literate, attention engaging, and multifaceted novel
A distinguished work of Latin-American literature written by Ariel Dorfman (who was exiled from his native Chile after the 1973 coup), Konfidenz is an absorbing story, told almost entirely through dialogue, of a woman best with telephone calls from a mysterious stranger who appears to know everything about her -- including her reasons for fleeing her homeland and the peril she and those close to her are in. Konfidenz is recommended as a tense, gripping, literate, attention engaging, and multifaceted novel.

The Many Voices of Konfidenz
Not only is this book intriguing in its storyline, but it is also intriguing in its composition:Dorfman uses several different narrative voices with great success.He puts the reader in the position of being the voyeur--watching the characters, as well as himself, the author.He also turns a voyeuristic eye on the reader, making you wonder if you, like the characters, are being watched.The novel raises issues of trust in a society where basic human rights are consistently compromised."Private life is an illusion in our world, Barbara.When you can torture one person, private life ends for everybody else." ... Read more

Product Description
A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture examines the cultural and historical contexts behind the work of major Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, and Gabriel García Márquez.

• Places major Latin American authors in the complex cultural and historical contexts that have compelled their distinctive fiction, essays and poetry
• Reflects the changes that have taken place in cultural theory and literary criticism since the latter part of the 20th century
• Allows the reader to more accurately interpret the esteemed but demanding literature of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, César Vallejo, and Gabriel García Márquez
• Special attention is paid to key authors whose work has defined a period, or defied borders
• Additional essays engage the reader with in-depth discussions of forms and genres, and discussions of architecture, music and film
• Each chapter includes a selected bibliography and recommendations for further reading

Product Description

By one of the most original and learned critical voices in Hispanic studies-- a timely and ambitious study of authority as theme and authority as authorial strategy in modern Latin American literature.

An ideology is implicit in modern Latin American literature, argues Roberto González Echevarría, through which both the literature itself and criticism of it define what Latin American literature is and how it ought to be read. In the works themselves this ideology is constantly subjected to a radical critique, and that critique renders the ideology productive and in a sense is what constitutes the work. In literary criticism, however, too frequently the ideology merely serves as support for an authoritative discourse that seriously misrepresents Latin American literature.

In The Voice of the Masters, González Echevarría attempts to uncover the workings of modern Latin American literature by creating a dialogue of texts, a dynamic whole whose parts are seven illuminating essays on seminal texts in the tradition. As he says, "To have written a sustained, expository book ... would have led me to make the same kind of critical error that I attribute to most criticism of Latin American literature.... I would have naively assumed an authoritative voice while attempting a critique of precisely that critical gesture."

Instead, major works by Barnet, Cabrera Infante, Carpentier, Cortázar, Fuentes, Gallegos, García Márquez, Roa Bastos, and Rodó are the object of a set of independent deconstructive (and reconstructive) readings. Writing in the tradition of Derrida and de Man, González Echevarría brings to these readings both the penetrative brilliance of the French master and a profound understanding of historical and cultural context. His insightful annotation of Cabrera Infante's "Meta-End," the full text of which is presented at the close of the study, clearly demonstrates these qualities and exemplifies his particular approach to the text.

Product Description
This is a thoroughly postmodern take on the coming-of-age novel. Ricardo is making himself sick over his obsession with the girl next door and Elias is hopelessly infatuated with a local prostitute. One lives in the bustle of Mexico City, the other in the quiet of a tiny Baja California town. They both find themselves in a world dominated by desire where "love begins to wither from the moment it takes root". They spend their days agonising over women and their nights dreaming of them. They invent erotic stories whose labyrinthine plots twist and turn into wildly comic and lyrical testaments to the difficulties of love. With this novel, Urroz joins the ranks of such eminent Latin American writers as Juan Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes and Manuel Puig, marking the American debut of one of the most brilliant Mexican writers working today. ... Read more

Product Description
In the early morning of March 31, 1970 in Belo Horizonte,Brazil, the annual birthday celebration of a prominent and wealthyyoung artist is taking place, and a train docked in Plaza Stationfilled with starving, drought-stricken migrant workers seeking reliefgets turned away by the authorities, sparking a riot. From these twoseemingly unrelated events, Ivan Ângelo’s remarkable novel connectsand implicates the lives of a complex of characters, spanning threedecades of tumultuous social and political history intwentieth-century Brazil. But with the central event—thecelebration—missing, the reader is thrust into the middle of apuzzle, left to construct the story from the evidence that accrues ina range of comic, unnerving, misleading, and tragic episodes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This book blew my mind
I thought I knew a lot about Franz Werfel, but after reading this book I stand corrected.This book literally blew me away, both with its depth and its clarity.Dr. Wagener has obviously devoted a great deal of his life to understanding Franz Werfel and his influences and it shows.This book dissects Werfel in ways I didn't think possible, providing much greater insight into what made the legend that is Werfel tick.True to form, Dr. Wagener's prose is powerful and insightful.Through his masterful pen, Dr. Wagener demonstrates -- indeed, he inspires -- a profound personal deep respect for Werfel for what Werfel gave the world in his writings.This is a remarkable and beautifully written "must have" for anyone interested in modern German literature, whether a novice or expert such as myself.Even if you have no interest in the subject area you will not be able to put this book down.Well done, Dr. Wagener!I am eagerly awaiting your next literary creation! ... Read more

Product Description
This innovative college-level textbook for third-year college Spanish courses introduces the student to Latin American literature using a unique bilingual approach in which an English translation parallels the Spanish original. As such it is appropriate for courses which attempt to make the transition from basic language-acquisition courses to upper level elective language courses. Dr. Child also employs an historical approach, starting with the pre-Columbian oral traditions and covering five centuries through the Mexican Revolution; other features include an introductory biographical section, numerous graphs, charts, and a glossary of terms. ... Read more

Product Description
From the Popol Vuh to postmodernism, imagery of the natural world has played an important role in Latin American literature. In contrast to the rise of ecocritical scholarship in Anglophone literary studies, Latin American literary ecocriticism has been slower to take root. This volume of eleven essays seeks to advance the ecocritical conversation among Latin Americanists, furthering insight into the relationship between humans and their environments. The essays address regions as diverse as Patagonia and the Chihuahua Desert. ... Read more

Product Description
The Argentine scholar Noé Jitrik has long been one of the foremost literary critics in Latin America, noted not only for his groundbreaking scholarship but also for his wit. This volume is the first to make available in English a selection of his most influential writings. These sparkling translations of essays first published between 1969 and the late 1990s reveal the extraordinary scope of Jitrik’s work, his sharp insights into the interrelations between history and literature, and his keen awareness of the specificities of Latin American literature and its relationship to European writing. Together they signal the variety of critical approaches and vocabularies Jitrik has embraced over the course of his long career, including French structuralist thought, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism.

The Noé Jitrik Reader showcases Jitrik’s reflections on marginality and the canon, exile and return, lack and excess, autobiography, Argentine nationalism, the state of literary criticism, the avant-garde, and the so-called Boom in Latin American literature. Among the writers whose work he analyzes in the essays collected here are Jorge Luis Borges, Esteban Echeverría, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, José Martí, César Vallejo, José Bianco, Juan Carlos Onetti, José María Arguedas, Julio Cortázar, and Augusto Roa Bastos. The Noé Jitrik Reader offers English-language readers a unique opportunity to appreciate the rigor and thoughtfulness of one of Latin America’s most informed and persuasive literary critics. ... Read more

Product Description
A work remarkable for both its form and execution, Avalovara belongs to the tradition of contemporary writing that Gregory Rabassa calls "the inventive novel." These novels include such works as Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch and Italo Calvino's Mr. Palomar, and are "narratives where the author produces the raw materials and hands them over for the reader to give them shape or structure and sometimes meaning."

The protagonist's courtship of three women constitutes the main plot of Avalovara. He pursues the sophisticated and inaccessible Roos across Europe; falls in love with Cecília, a carnal, compassionate hermaphrodite; and achieves a tender, erotic alliance with a woman known only by an ideogram. Reinforcing the inventive nature of Lins's masterpiece, the action develops within a rigorous, puzzlelike design--visually represented by a spiral and a five-word palindrome. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Avalaovara:The Sator Square as your Comapss in this Labrynth of Literature
At first glance one would look at Osaman Lins' Avalovara and see an interesting read; a story superimposed on a conceptual map of time and space represented by the mystical Sator square set on a spiral but boy are you in for a ride, at second glance Lins would have you holding onto your bookmarks!In this novel there are eight stories which are all centered around one man: Abel and his relationship withthree women; there is the Yolyp a being twice born with an untranslatable symbol for a name; Anneliese Roos the woman with cities that dwell within her being, and Cecilia the hermaphrodite without a sense of her origin.
Amidst the connected stories and complex evocative narratives, that differ based on the personalities of their respective personas, there is the tail of the Sator square. This mystical magic square, whose secrets brought the demise of a slave and his master, serves as the main constructive element to the work. By using this geometrical structure the author has predetermined the order in which the narratives (including that of the square) would appear and how the stories should be read with each turn on the spiral as it touches each letter of the Sator square. The mysticism of said square lies not only within its geometry but in the magic phrase whose 25 individual letters comprise the grid: "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas." In so being formed the sentence and each word can be read in multiple directions.
The writer here uses an extraordinary sense of imagery that illustrates each respective narrative (which corresponds with the letters and story behind the Sator Square) as well as different techniques in writing styles that grows with the book and the experiences of the characters. The stories though confusing and bizarre in origin possess a sense of realism natural to all human beings: there are the themes of loneliness, carnal desire, unsatisfied longing, self criticism, contemplated and attempted suicide to name a few, that enrich the tale which deals with relationships in all forms. Another over arching technique that rides side by side with this sense of realism is the stark sense of imagination that becomes a part of reality, one can sum it up to reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez amplified by ten or experiencing a Frida Kahlo painting in words... This is most evident in the Chapter seven of the yolyp twice born (designated by the letter "O" of the Sator square), here the animals rise up from the rug and fuse with the bodies of the enamored in their erotic affair.
Despite its sordid context and complex framework, Osman Lins provides a novel of unlimited imagination, rich language, and "sci-fi-esque" proportions that would keep you more than entertained.

Difficult, yet Remarkable
The feeling that remains in any normal human being who stumbles through that passage is one of complete and utter disorientation.In fact, throughout the book, the reader is likely to feel lost more often than not.But, in a twisted sort of way, that is the whole point behind Lins' book.After all, what is life but a journey through which we know no end, no point, no destination?Instead of telling the story of Abel's three affairs in 330 pages of neatly packaged prose, complete with beginning, end, climax and character, Lins takes the reader on a journey that is much more real.
Avalovara will prove to be a colossal struggle for anybody that attempts to "understand" it as he or she is reading it.In short, those looking for plot will, much like Bono, never find what they're looking for.Instead, the beauty of the novel lies in the language. Lins' writing isrambling, Faulkneresque, stream of consciousness at some points, and brilliantly beautiful lyricism at others.At most points, it is a luscious combination of the two. "The smell of dust is dissipated by her presence or by the lukewarm afternoon air coming in through the window," Lins writes on page seven. "Our tongues repeat the game of advance and retreat. Our incisors touch at times and then our muscles retract." On page 223, he writes, "I suck in Abel's mouth, I speak in his mouth, inside his mouth, I say that I love him, with his tongue entangled in mine he says that he loves me, the word "love" rolls between our teeth."The repetition is incredibly simple, but incredibly poetic.
Love, human emotion, human attraction, sexuality: all are among the most common words and phrases in the English language, but all are utterly impossible to define in a sentence or two.They are among the most complex subjects ever studied by the minds of man. They are mysteries, enigmas, riddles.They are, much like the magic square and its accompanying spiral, puzzles for which we may never have the entire answer.Lins writes his book in such a way.Instead of getting lost in people, places, things and events, the readers is lost in a dizzying array of feelings, emotions and desires, the same way anybody involved in a love affair is lost.There are novels that require you to think, novels that require you to follow, novels that require you to decide.Lins' novel requires you to feel, and the answer behind the puzzle that adorns the first page of the novel lies in the way these characters feel - about each other, about the world, about their desire for one another.
Lins' book is not for everyone.There is no quest, no mission, no end.There is no Holden, no Demian, no George.There is, however, a brilliant trip through the minds, hearts and souls of the characters - minds, hearts and souls that take the readers into and through the very essence of human emotion.There is some of the most beautifully poetic prose to ever come out of Latin America.And, by the end of the novel, there is a resounding success by a tremendously gifted novelist.

Sensual, meticulous, erotic, with a complex plot
The late Brazillian author Gregory Rabassa' Avalovara is an enduringly impressive work of Latin American Literature (aptly translated into English by Gregory Rabassa), about one man and his three great loves. One seems unattainable despite his pursuit; one is a kindly hermaphrodite who enjoys the fruit of passion; and one goes only by an ideogram for her name. Sensual, meticulous, erotic, with a complex plot and tangled human machinations, Avalovara is a uniquely written, inventive, and original literary experience.

Can you imagine a fusion of Borges and Garcia Marquez?
This gorgeous novel is that chimera, that impossible novel that is both an intellectual endeavor and a magical fiction that seamlessly blends Borges and Garcia Marquez. The book is structured as a spiral, and it recounts thestory of a man and the three women he loved. The book is filled withintellectual games, as in the fiction of Borges and Cortazar, yet thewriting is as sensual and erotic as in the fiction of Amado and GarciaMarquez. I loved it! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Susan C. Brantly's introduction to the writings of Isak Dinesen elucidates the subtle complexities of a Scandinavian writer whose works have attracted a large, passionate following in her homeland, throughout the world, and especially in the United States. Highly regarded by a generation that followed her televised trip to America in the 1950s and by a later generation mesmerized by the Oscar-winning 1985 film Out of Africa, Dinesen gained her initial literary success in the United States. Brantly suggests that despite Dinesen’s wide appeal, her irony, allusiveness, obliquity, and mystery elude many readers, depriving them of a full appreciation of the writer's artistry. In this guide Brantly illumines the easily missed literary references, cultural kaleidoscope, and other complexities that enrich not only Dinesen's fictional works but also the memoir she wrote of her time in Kenya.

Brantly addresses the ambiguous qualities of Dinesen's life and literature that have caused critics to disagree on fundamental points of interpretation, examines her ties to English Gothic, German Romanticism, and other nineteenth-century trends, and considers her work within the contexts of modernism and postmodernism. Brantly reveals the thought and care that Dinesen devoted to the construction of her stories, her expansive knowledge of world literature, and the great pleasure awaiting readers as they unravel the mysteries embedded in her texts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Understanding Isak Dinesen
This is quite possibly the best book on Karen Blixen ever written.Brantly has synthesized most all scholars into a comprehesive look at Blixens work. ... Read more

Product Description