Spanish American Literature in the Age of Machines and Other Essays

Book excerpt: Ángel Rama was among the most prominent Latin American literary and cultural critics of the twentieth century. This volume brings together—and makes available in English for the first time—some of his most influential writings from the 1960s up until his death in 1983. Meticulously curated and translated by José Eduardo González and Timothy R. Robbins, Spanish American Literature in the Age of Machines and Other Essays will give readers a new, deeper appreciation of how Rama's views on Latin American literary history reflect the dynamic between the region and the rest of the world. His rich meditations on the relation between narrative technique, social class, and group behavior—from the point of view of the periphery of capitalism—make this volume an important contribution to the study of world literature.