Conquest of the New Word: Experimental Fiction and Translation in the Americas

by Johnny Payne

Latin American fiction won great acclaim in the United States during the 1960s, when many North American writers and critics felt that our national writing had reached a low ebb. In this study of experimental fiction from both Americas, Johnny Payne argues that the North American reception of the "boom" in Latin American fiction distorted the historical grounding of this writing, erroneously presenting it as mainly an exotic "magical realism." He offers new readings that detail the specific, historical relation between experimental fiction and various authors' careful, deliberate deformations and reformations of the political rhetoric of the modern state. Payne juxtaposes writers from Argentina and Uruguay with North American authors, setting up suggestive parallels between the diverse but convergent practices of writers on both continents. He considers Nelson Marra in conjunction with Donald Barthelme and Gordon Lish; Teresa Porzecanski with Harry Mathews; Ricardo Piglia with John Barth; Silvia Schmid and Manuel Puig with Fanny Howe and Lydia Davis; and Jorge Luis Borges and Luisa Valenzuela with William Burroughs and Kathy Acker. With this innovative, dual-continent approach, Conquest of the New Word will be of great interest to everyone working in Latin American literature, women's studies, translation studies, creative writing, and cultural theory.

302 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1993

About the author

Johnny Payne is a novelist, poet, and dramatist. he is a recent gold medal winner of the Benjamin Franklin IBPA award in Horror. His novels include The Hard Side of the River, the forthcoming Confessions of a Gentleman Killer, Bedfellows, Silver Dagger, Second Chance, La Muerte de Papi, Vampire Girl, North of Patagonia, Kentuckiana. Books of poetry are Heaven of Ashes, and Vassal.

Payne writes novels in various genres. His most recent novels are about slavery and a serial killer. He is currently writing a fantasy novel, Man of Granite. He will be writing a blog on GoodReads.

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