In Search of the Sacred Book: Religion and the Contemporary Latin American Novel. By Aníbal González. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. 244 pages

This study on religion and the contemporary Latin American novel traces the presence of the sacred starting with Federico Gamboa's Santa (1903) and ending with Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes (1998), placing the narratives discussed within the vast panorama of Western literature a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Latin American literary review 2022-09, Vol.46 (92)
Main Author: Lagos, Maria
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
Latin America
novel
religion
sacred
secular
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This study on religion and the contemporary Latin American novel traces the presence of the sacred starting with Federico Gamboa's Santa (1903) and ending with Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes (1998), placing the narratives discussed within the vast panorama of Western literature and thought. The author acknowledges that the relationship between religion and the novel may seem paradoxical "given the markedly secular nature of prose fiction in Western culture" (3). Yet, elements such as magic, the supernatural, wizards, among others, "bring it closer to the sacred" (4). The book also includes new readings of works by Borges, Bombal, Carpentier, Rulfo, Cortázar, Lezama Lima, García Márquez, Poniatowska, and Fernando Vallejo. Scholar Aníbal González offers a superb contextualization of 20th century Latin American literature within the tradition of Western literature and thought. His study is a must read for critics of Latin American literature and culture.
ISSN:0047-4134
2330-135X
DOI:10.26824/lalr.143