The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism during the Cold War

Deborah Cohn

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780826518057, 9780826518040
• eBook ISBN: 9780826518064
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Literature

During the 1960s and 1970s, when writers such as Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa entered the international literary mainstream, Cold War cultural politics played an active role in disseminating their work in the United States. Deborah Cohn documents how U.S. universities, book and journal publishers, philanthropic organizations, cultural centers, and authors coordinated their efforts to bring Latin American literature to a U.S. reading public during this period, when interest in the region was heightened by the Cuban Revolution. She also traces the connections between the endeavors of private organizations and official foreign policy goals.

The high level of interest in Latin America paradoxically led the U.S. government to restrict these authors' physical presence in the United States through the McCarranWalter Act's immigration blacklist, even as cultural organizations cultivated the exchange of ideas with writers and sought to market translations of their work for the U.S. market.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Multiple Agendas: Latin American Literary Fervor and U.S. Outreach Programs following the Cuban Revolution
• 1. "Catch 28": The McCarran-Walter Immigration Blacklist and Spanish American Writers
• 2. PEN and the Sword: Latin American Writers and the 1966 PEN Congress
• 3. Latin America and Its Literature in the U.S. University after the Cuban Revolution
• 4. The "Cold War Struggle" for Latin American Literature at the Center for Inter-American Relations
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index