The present historical moment is allowing Black peoples and scholars of Afrodescendance to produce timely discussions of narratives about Blackness, language, and ideas across the western hemisphere. Despite research interventions in the disciplines of history, anthropology, and sociology, however, there is a relative paucity of research on Black letters in Latin American contexts. One reason for this lack of research is that the Latin American literary "canon" does indeed include a handful of Afrodescendant writers-we know, for example, that the seminal poet Ruben DarIo was an Afrodescendant, and Nicolas Guillen's poetry is included in virtually any literary anthology. A different reason, and the driving force behind this anthology, is that the themes of the great Black writers who have been ignored fall outside canonical themes. Amefrica in Letters brings together new research on Black literary history in the crucial period of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century-a period that saw the consolidation of Black power movements and human rights struggles across the Americas. The Black writers examined here have left an enduring legacy in nuestra America, particularly in mainland Latin America-even while their prose and poetry challenge the overarching theme of mestizo-imagined multiculturalism that endures in Latin America's publishing industry.

Book Information
ISBN 9780826505132
Author Jennifer Carolina Gomez Menjivar
Format Paperback
Page Count 246
Imprint Vanderbilt University Press
Publisher Vanderbilt University Press
Weight(grams) 152g