Central American Literatures as World Literature

Sophie Esch is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Rice University, USA, with specialization in Central American, Mexican, and comparative literature. She is author of an award-winning book, Modernity at Gunpoint (2018), and has edited a special dossier on Central American literature for one of the premier journals of her field: “Passages: Routes of Migration and Memory in Central American Literature,” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 54 no. 1.

• IntroductionSophie Esch (Rice University, USA)Part I. Modes1. Reorienting the World: Reading Maya Literatures through Xocom BalumilRita M. Palacios (Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada) and Paul M. Worley (Western Carolina University, USA)2. World Literature in Minor Key: The Central American Short StorySophie Esch (Rice University, USA) and Ignacio Sarmiento Panez (State University of New York at Fredonia, USA)3. Central American Testimonio as World Literature: English Translation and the Canonization of a GenreTamara Inés de Antón (The University of the West Indies, Jamaica)4. When Does Central American Literature Become Global?: The Extraordinary (or Predictable?) Case of Eduardo HalfonMagdalena Perkowska (Hunter College, CUNY, USA)Part II. Constellations5. Cosmopolitanism and Disillusion in Rubén DaríoCarlos F. Grigsby (University of Cologne, Germany)6. Álvaro Menen Desleal’s Speculative Planetary ImaginationCarolyn Fornoff (Cornell University, USA)7. Between Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism: Roque Dalton and World LiteratureYansi Pérez (Carleton College, USA)8. Rewriting the Militant Left: Untranslatability and Dissensus in Horacio Castellanos MoyaTamara L. Mitchell (University of British Columbia, Canada)9. Humberto Ak'abal's Pluri-verses: Indigeneity, Cosmolectics, and World LiteratureGloria E. Chacón (UC Santa Cruz, USA)Part III. Routes10. Canal Zone Modernism: Cendrars, Walrond, and Sevens at the "Suction Sea"Harris Feinsod (Northwestern University, USA)11. Creole Poetics of the Ocean: Carlos Rigby, Ecological Thought, and Caribbean Diasporic ConsciousnessTatiana Argüello (Texas Christian University, USA)12. US Central Americans Writing Global South SpacesAndrew Bentley (University of Indiana Bloomington, USA)13. Caravaneros as Citizens of the WorldRobert McKee Irwin (University of California Davis, USA)Notes on ContributorsIndex

Central American Literatures as World Literature marks an important milestone in the opening up of Central American studies to a broader paradigm. Its contributors discuss some of Central America’s most renowned authors as well as lesser known but increasingly important Black, Indigenous, queer, and immigrant writers. This book draws us away from the narrow nationalist frameworks that have dominated our understanding of Central American society and moves us toward the pluricultural realities and diverse Indigenous cosmologies of the region. I applaud the editor and the contributors for producing a volume that showcases the richness of Central American literature and its diaspora.