When Gabriel García Márquez published his monumental novel 100 Years of Solitude in 1967 he transformed not only the history of Latin American literature, but the history of literature and culture throughout the world. But then what happened? Beginning with Márquez’s novel, and what Cuban author Alejo Carpentier called “the marvelous real” (lo real maravilloso), this course in English will explore how Latin American fiction of the last fifty years has adapted, rejected, or otherwise reimagined magical realism to invent new ways to narrate and respond to the world’s changing realities. While our present world might seem more nightmarish than magical, the novels in this class will provide us with the resources to imagine reality otherwise.

When Gabriel García Márquez published his monumental novel 100 Years of Solitude in 1967 he transformed not only the history of Latin American literature, but the history of literature and culture throughout the world. But then what happened? Beginning with Márquez’s novel, and what Cuban author Alejo Carpentier called “the marvelous real” (lo real maravilloso), this course in English will explore how Latin American fiction of the last sixty years has adapted, rejected, or otherwise reimagined magical realism to invent new ways to narrate and respond to the world’s changing realities. We will read writers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, and Peru who take on everything from ecological disaster, authoritarian politics, global pandemics and forced migration in order to try to make sense of the chaos and find in fiction a way to critique, repair, and struggle for another world. This trajectory will include Roberto Bolaño’s darkly hallucinatory narrative, Rita Indiana’s Afro- Caribbean influenced science fiction, Claudia Hernández’s surrealist tales, Yuri Herrera’s border-crossing apocalyptic noir, Gabriela Cabezón-Cámara’s queer feminist historical fiction, Mario Bellatin’s bizarrely beautiful novella, and Samanta Schweblin’s feverish experimental storytelling. While our present world might seem more nightmarish than magical, the novels in this class will provide us with the resources to imagine reality otherwise.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills