The Latin American Short Story at its Limits

Download or read book The Latin American Short Story at its Limits written by Lucy Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Latin American short story has often been viewed in terms of its relation to orality, tradition and myth. But this desire to celebrate the difference of Latin American culture unwittingly contributes to its exoticization, failing to do justice to its richness, complexity and contemporaneity. By re-reading and re-viewing the short stories of Juan Rulfo, Julio Cortazar and Augusto Monterroso, Bell reveals the hybridity of this genre. It is at once rooted in traditional narrative and fragmented by modern experience; its residual qualities are revived through emergent forms. Crucially, its oral and mythical characteristics are compounded with the formal traits of modern, emerging media: photography, cinema, telephony, journalism, and cartoon art.