Analysis of Latin American literature through a mathematical lens

Several of the most influential Latin American writers were interested in the sciences. Moreover, a handful showed an affinity to mathematics since childhood, eventually following careers as physicists, engineers, and mathematicians before turning their attention to the arts. In the end, they became novelists, essayists, and poets, who made significant contributions to their field. There is a large amount of existent traditional literature analysis research on Latin American authors. In the last sixteen years, research has shifted to include a focus on the connection between math and literature. However, this research focuses on interpreting the ideas of the universally acclaimed writer Jorge Luis Borges, studying his scientific thinking through his works, and demonstrating the writings included both basic and advanced math concepts even though he lacked a formal mathematical and scientific formation. Currently, there is a gap in the research that ignores the influential Latin American authors who were also prolific in mathematics. As a math and engineering student, I am interested in studying the work of Latin American writers with academic backgrounds in STEM fields--specifically mathematics. I intend to examine the writings of Ernesto Sabato, Guillermo Martinez, and Nicanor Parra for explicit math terminology and concepts.

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The Classical Tradition of Cosmopolitan “Spiritual Exercises” in Jorge Luis Borges and Latin American Postnational Literature

Postnational Perspectives on Contemporary Hispanic Literature ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813054940.003.0008 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Bernat Castany Prado

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Classical Tradition ◽

Latin American ◽

Jorge Luis Borges ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Direct Result ◽

Spiritual Exercises ◽

Western Literature ◽

Hispanic Literature ◽

Decisive Influence

Castany Prado’s chapter offers a fuller understanding of Borges’s cosmopolitanism, which has been influential in contemporary Western literature in general, and, more specifically, in postnational Latin American literature. The author traces the roots of cosmopolitanism back to the teachings of the Cynics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists, before identifying their literary projections in contemporary Hispanic literature. He then argues that the postnational paradigm is neither the direct result of recent globalization processes, nor can it be understood in solely internationalist terms; rather, it is heir to a millennia-long tradition of philosophical cosmopolitanism. This is especially important in the area of postnational Latin American literature, for which, according to Castany Prado, Borges constitutes a decisive influence.

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After Bolaño: Rethinking the Politics of Latin American Literature in Translation

PMLA ◽

10.1632/pmla.2013.128.3.660 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 128 (3) ◽

pp. 660-667 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Sarah Pollack

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Latin America ◽

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

The United States ◽

Magic Realism ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Roberto Bolano ◽

American Authors

On 25 november 2012, when the united states novelist jonathan franzen opened mexico's feria internacional del libro de guadalajara, he spoke of his experience of reading Latin American fiction. Asked about the region's representation through literature in English translation, Franzen stated that, magic realism having now “run its course,” Roberto Bolaño had become the “new face of Latin America.” Franzen's words echo what has almost become a commonplace in the United States over the last five years: naming Bolaño “the Gabriel García Márquez of our time” (Moore), after the publication by Farrar, Straus and Giroux of the translations of Los detectives salvajes (1998; The Savage Detectives [2007]) and his posthumous 2666 (2004; 2666 [2008]). Bolaño is also considered by many writers, critics, and readers in Latin America to be “reigning as the new paradigm” (Volpi, sec. 3). If in the United States market, through the synecdoche of literary commodification, García Márquez's revolutionary Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude [1970]) and, specifically, the magic realism of his fictional Macondo came to stand in for the diverse literary projects of Latin American authors in the 1960s, one must ask if a similar operation is taking place with Bolaño. While the number of translated Latin American literary works continues to be limited and most “go virtually unnoticed” (“Translation Database”), the significance of Bolaño's place at the center of a new canon in translation is magnified and necessitates inquiring into how his critical success in the United States market may be shifting the politics of translation of other texts. As a critic announced in 2011, “a second Latin American literature Boom is happening … [that] probably owes its existence to the explosion of the late-Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, whose popularity re-opened the door to North American publishing houses for Latin American authors” (Rosenthal).

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Borges, Jorge Luis (1899–1986)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism ◽

10.4324/9781135000356-rem1092-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Nataly Tcherepashenets

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

William Faulkner ◽

Joseph Conrad ◽

Buenos Aires ◽

Jorge Luis Borges ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Modern Approach ◽

Long Line ◽

Freedom Fighters

Jorge Luis Borges is among the writers who have brought international fame to Latin American Literature. A fabulist, poet, essayist and translator, Borges shaped modern literary perception and became a classic of modern letters. His influential concept of writing as rewriting and his view that each word or group of words has a determinant impact on literature’s effectiveness are crucial to an understanding of his texts and exemplify a modern approach to literary theory. Borges, whose ancestors were among the first Europeans to arrive in America, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father, Jorge Guillermo Borges, a lawyer and psychology teacher with anarchist views, taught Jorge Luis philosophy. His mother, Leonor Acevedo de Borges, a proud descendant of a long line of soldiers and freedom fighters, was a dedicated companion to her son until her death at the age of 99. Her help was indispensable, especially when Jorge Luis’s blindness made it very difficult for him to read and write. Two years after Jorge Luis’ birth, his sister Norah, his closest childhood friend and his first illustrator, was born. Both English and Spanish were used in Borges’ house, and he learned to read English before he could read Spanish. This knowledge played a key role in his work as a translator. He introduced James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Wolf, and William Faulkner to the Spanish-speaking world.

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Epilogue: After Bolaño

10.1093/oso/9780190690205.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey Lawrence

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

The United States ◽

Junot Diaz ◽

English Translations ◽

Roberto Bolano ◽

American Authors ◽

Literatures Of The Americas

Since the posthumous publication of 2666 in Spanish in 2004 and of the English translations of Distant Star (2004), The Savage Detectives (2007), and 2666 (2008), the novels of Roberto Bolaño—and their central figure, the reader-experiencer—have provided one of the most important models for writers in both the English- and Spanish-speaking worlds. As US authors are reading more Latin American literature than ever, Latin American authors are increasingly writing about their “experience” of the United States. After analyzing contemporary works by Latina/o writers composing in English in the United States, including Francisco Goldman, Ana Menéndez, and Junot Díaz; by non-Latina/o US writers such as Ben Lerner and Kenneth Goldsmith; and by Spanish-language writers such as Mexican-born novelist Valeria Luiselli and Puerto Rican poet Mara Pastor, the book ends by considering how recent works in the literatures of the Americas might point toward new literary possibilities in the future.

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Transvestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature

10.1057/9780230107281 ◽

2002 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Ben. Sifuentes-Jáuregui

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature

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Surrealism in Latin American Literature

10.1057/9781137317612 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Melanie Nicholson

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Latin American Literature

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Uncommon Grounds

10.1093/oso/9780190690205.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey Lawrence

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

Historical Novel ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

Historical Account ◽

American Novel ◽

Song Of Solomon ◽

The Past ◽

The North ◽

The Us

This chapter turns from a historical account of the development of the US literature of experience and the Latin American literature of reading to a textual analysis of the US and Latin American historical novel. Hemispheric/inter-American scholars often cite William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977) as exemplifying instances of literary borrowing across the North–South divide. As I demonstrate, however, each of the later texts also realigns its predecessor’s historical imaginary according to the dominant logics of the US and Latin American literary fields. Whereas the American works foreground experiential models of reconstructing the past and conveying knowledge across generations, García Márquez’s Latin American novel presents reading as the fundamental mode of comprehending and transmitting history.

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Anxieties of Experience

10.1093/oso/9780190690205.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jeffrey Lawrence

Keyword(s):

American Literature ◽

Latin American ◽

World Literature ◽

Latin American Literature ◽

First Century ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Leaves Of Grass ◽

Literary Authority ◽

The Us ◽

New Interpretation

Anxieties of Experience: The Literatures of the Americas from Whitman to Bolaño offers a new interpretation of US and Latin American literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Revisiting longstanding debates in the hemisphere about whether the source of authority for New World literature derives from an author’s first-hand contact with American places and peoples or from a creative (mis)reading of existing traditions, the book charts a widening gap in how modern US and Latin American writers defined their literary authority. In the process, it traces the development of two distinct literary strains in the Americas: the “US literature of experience” and the “Latin American literature of the reader.” Reinterpreting a range of canonical works from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, Anxieties of Experience shows how this hemispheric literary divide fueled a series of anxieties, misunderstandings, and “misencounters” between US and Latin American authors. In the wake of recent calls to rethink the “common grounds” approach to literature across the Americas, the book advocates a comparative approach that highlights the distinct logics of production and legitimation in the US and Latin American literary fields. Anxieties of Experience closes by exploring the convergence of the literature of experience and the literature of the reader in the first decades of the twenty-first century, arguing that the post-Bolaño moment has produced the strongest signs of a truly reciprocal literature of the Americas in more than a hundred years.

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