THE EPIC OF LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE

A difficult book to assess in a brief space, and with inadequate background on a subject in which this has helped make me feel reasonably conversant (and thereby, perhaps, proved at least one point in its favor). A survey, in one fairly compact volume, which covers the whole range of Latin American literature. The Colonial Period, deeply rooted in Spain, occupies only about one third of the space -- chroniclers, poets, dramatists; intellectual liberty was slow in following upon political liberty. Then modernism, and with the post war period, the importance of women in the literary scene, the development of the gaucho literature, the emergence of Negro verse. One whole section concentrates on the novel; another on Brazilian literature. Excellent as introductory birdseye view; of necessity not profoundly critical.