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

Alexander Torres, Pablo Baisotti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040725757
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Religious Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Drawing on diverse scholarly and theoretical perspectives, this collection delves into the interplay between modernity and sacred traditions in contemporary Latin America as represented in its literature. It references important historical contexts, from the encounter of the Old and New Worlds to cultural mestizaje, highlighting the resilience of sacred discourse and experience amid a disenchanting capitalist modernity. Featuring analyses of diverse 20th- and 21st-century literary works, this book offers deep insights into how the sacred persists multifariously in Latin American literature. This work invites readers to rediscover the sacred as a vital component of human existence and literary discourse. It is an essential resource for understanding the complex relationship between modernity and the phenomenon of the sacred in Latin America.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Death in Latin American Literature. A Balance between the Sacred and the Profane
• 2 Religion and Light in Mexican Literature
• 3 The Ritual of Violence and the Sacred in Os Sertões and Bacurau
• 4 Heeding the Animal: Traces of the Sacred in the Narrative of Ana Paula Maia
• 5 María Sabina’s Prayer: The Sacred and Religious Syncretism
• 6 Mysticism and Ritual in Libro del sol (2000) by Josemári Recalde Rojas
• 7 The Persistence of the Sacred in the Contemporary Female Narrative of Formation: Four Texts by Giovanna Rivero
• 8 Metamorphoses of the Sacred and the Expressions of Violence in Clarice Lispector’s Novel The Passion According to G.H.
• 9 New World Modernity and the Sacred in Two Colombian Bildungsromane
• 10 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
• 12 Asian Religiosity in Latin American Literature
• Index