Manuel Zapata Olivella and the "darkening" of Latin American literature / Antonio D. Tillis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tillis, Antonio D.

Series:

Afro-romance writers.

Afro-romance writers

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Zapata Olivella, Manuel--Criticism and interpretation.

Zapata Olivella, Manuel.

Black people in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (163 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Columbia : University of Missouri Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Manuel Zapata Olivella and the "Darkening" of Latin American Literature is an examination of the fictional work of one of Latin America's most prolific, yet overlooked, writers. Born in Colombia to parents of mixed ancestry, Zapata Olivella used his novels to explore the plight of the downtrodden in his nation and by extension the experience of blacks in other parts of the Americas. Author Antonio D. Tillis offers a critical examination of Zapata Olivella's major works of fiction from the 1940s to the 1990s, including Tierra mojada (1947); Pasión vagabunda (1949); He visto la noche (1953); La Calle 10 (1960); En Chimá nace un santo (1963); Las claves mágicas de América (1989); and Hemingway, el cazador de la muerte (1993). Tillis focuses on the development of the "black aesthetic" in Zapata Olivella's stories, in which the circumstances of the people of African heritage are centered in the narrative discourse. Tillis also traces Zapata Olivella's novelistic effort to incorporate the Africa-descended subject into the literature of Latin America. A critical look at the placement of Afro-Latin American protagonists reveals the sociopolitical and historical challenges of citizenship and community. In addition, this study explores tenets of postcolonial and postmodern thought such as place, displacement, marginalization, historiographic metafiction, and chronological disjuncture in relation to Zapata Olivella's fiction. Tillis concludes that the novelistic trajectory of this Afro-Colombian writer was one that brought into literary history an often overlooked subject: the disenfranchised citizen of African ancestry. By expanding and updating the current scholarship on Zapata Olivella, Tillis leads us to new contexts for and interpretations of this author's work. This analysis will be welcomed by readers who are just beginning to discover the writings of Zapata Olivella, and its new approach to those writings will be appreciated by scholars who are already familiar with his works.

Contents:

Tierra mojada

the genesis of an Africanized literary trajectory

From region to nation to North America

La calle 10, en Chim and Chambacu : The "Boom" in Colombian violence, hunger, resistance, and hope

Manuel Zapata Olivella : the postmodern writer

An exploration of postcolonial tri-ethnicity in Levantate mulato!, Las claves magicas de America, and Chango, el gran putas

From the Americas to Africa : Hemingway, the Death Stalker

The darkening of Latin American literature.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-139) and index.

ISBN:

0-8262-6467-0

OCLC:

65177750