Unveiling the Sacred in 20th- and 21st-Century Latin American Literature

Alexander Torres holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature. His first book, Bastardos de la modernidad: el Bildungsroman roquero en América Latina (2020), comprises a critique of the ontological impact of capitalist modernity from the perspective of the novel of formation, the baroque ethos, and the Latin American youth who sought to build a new lifeworld through rock culture. In addition to specializing in the Bildungsroman, Torres’ research focuses on the contemporary literary production of different regions in Latin America, often with young and uneasy characters who are faced with a disenchanted and hostile world. He has recently published chapters in The Routledge Handbook of Violence in Latin American Literature (2022), Growing Up in Latin America: Child and Youth Agency in Contemporary Popular Culture (2022), and Transculturación y trans-identidades en la literatura contemporánea mexicana (2022). Along with Magdalena González Almada and Tatiana Navallo, Torres contributed as a guest editor and author to the special Bolivian Studies Journal issue Geopoéticas del abigarramiento en narrativas bolivianas actuales (2023), whose focus is on the dialogic relationship between motley social formations and the mobility of affects, a determining feature of recent Bolivian literary and cultural production. Lastly, Torres is currently interested in analyzing and exploring various expressions of the sacred in Latin American literature. He teaches at the University of South Florida (Tampa).Pablo Baisotti received his Ph.D. in Politics, Institutions, and History from the University of Bologna School of Political Science in 2015. Before that, he received an M.Phil. in International Relations (Europe-Latin America) from the University of Bologna in 2008 and an M.A. in Law and Economic Integration from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the University of Salvador in 2007. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Salvador in 2004. He was a fellow researcher at the University of Sun Yat-sen in China and a full-time research fellow at the Maria Sibylla Merian Center, University of Costa Rica. He has worked as an associate external researcher at the University of Brasilia (Department of Latin American Studies) and as an external lecturer at Warsaw University (Institute of Iberian and Ibero-American Studies). Currently, Baisotti is a senior lecturer in the EBS – Management and Marketing Group, University of Essex. He was also an academic visitor at the Latin American Centre, St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on contemporary Latin America, from politics and history to literature, political economy, and international relations. In addition to establishing international collaborations and conducting extensive fieldwork, he has published and edited more than 20 books and dozens of articles and book chapters.

• List of ContributorsIntroduction by Alexander Torres, PhD, and Pablo Baisotti, PhD1. Death in Latin American literature. A balance between the sacred and the profane by Pablo Baisotti2. Religion and Light in Mexican Literature by Rebecca Janzen, University of South Carolina3. The Ritual of Violence and the Sacred in Os sertões and Bacurau by M. Elizabeth Ginway, University of Florida4. Heeding the Animal: Traces of the Sacred in the Narrative of Ana Paula Maiaby Mónica Velásquez Guzmán5. María Sabina’s Prayer: The Sacred and Religious Syncretism by Herlinda Flores-Badillo6. Mysticism and Ritual in Libro del sol (2000) by Josemári Recalde Rojas by Enrique Bernales Albites7. The Persistence of the Sacred in the Contemporary Female Narrative of Formation: Four Texts by Giovanna Rivero by PATRICIA POBLETE ALDAY8. 8. Metamorphoses of the Sacred and the Expressions of Violence in Clarice Lispector’s Novel The Passion According to G.H. by Rodica Grigore9. New World Modernity and the Sacred in two Colombian Bildungsromane by Alexander Torres10. Sacredness in the Andes: The Survival of the Wandering Jew in “La última erranza” (1947) by the Ecuadorian Joaquín Gallegos Lara (1909-1947)11. Inside and outside the Sacred: (Re)Elaborations of African Practices and Myths in the Narrative of Lydia Cabrera by Margherita Cannavacciuolo12. Asian religiosity in Latin American literature by Ignacio López-CalvoIndex