Postmodernism's role in Latin American literature : the life and work of Augusto Roa Bastos /

Paraguay's best-known writer, Roa Bastos (1917-2005), has not achieved the fame of his illustrious contemporaries (Fuentes, Cortazar, Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa). In addition to novels, Roa Bastos wrote poetry, screenplays, and short stories, mostly from exile in Argentina and France because of his opposition to longtime Paraguay dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Weldt-Basson (Michigan State Univ.) opens this book with a useful introduction that prepares the ground for her fellow contributors to link Roa Bastos to postmodernism. For example, Tracy Lewis looks at the function of poetry and its role in linguistic inequality; David Foster considers Roa Bastos's Argentine film scripts. Dense but meaty essays treat rhizomatic writing in the short stories (in light of the formal theories of Deleuze and Guattari) and postmodernism in the story "Juegos nocturnos." More digestible are treatments of gender and the state in Hijo de hombre and an analysis of orality and writing in Yo, el Supremo. Other chapters take up "tyranny and foundation" and the pros and cons of Roa Bastos's practice of rewriting his fiction, especially his later works. The editor concludes with a study of female archetypes and feminism in Roa Bastos's work. Includes useful notes. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. J. Walker Queen's University at Kingston