Alicia Borinsky argues that the contemporary Latin American novel does not just ingeniously dismantle the referential claims of the more traditional novel; it offers a postmodern version of the lessons taught by fiction. Latin American fiction, perhaps the most inventive literature of recent decades, seems marked by its self-reflexivity, by its playful relationship to history and the everyday, and by its concerns with the ways in which language works. But is it, Borinsky asks, really a literature whose primary goal is to raise metafictional questions about writing and reading? While the effects of this literature include dismantling the illusions of realism, naturalism, and historicism, the haunting and disturbing energy of its major works lies in their capacity of invoke a region beyond literature through literature. Theoretical Fables progresses by way of close readings of the works of eight canonical-and not quite canonical-Latin American Authors. Borinsky argues that the Latin American "theoretical fable" has its origins in the work of the early twentieth-century Argentinean writer Macedonio Fernandez. In this light she studies the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Jose Donoso, Adolfo Bioy Cesares, Manuel Puig, and Maria Luisa Bombal.

In Lost Cities Go to Paradise, poetry breaks into song and poetic prose becomes lively storytelling as Alicia Borinsky raises intimate questions about the fragility of contemporary life. Composed of many layered scenes, unforgettable characters, snapshots, and vignettes, this collection of quick-witted poems and short fiction mixes deceit and conceit with moments of tenderness and the elusive nature of humanity, asking if identity is more than a festival of masks and self-invention. At the center of Borinsky's work are the cities, which are a masquerade of disaster and spectacle that moves through space and time. Within these cities reside a woman who hides her face so that she may be better seen, cheating lovers who betray only to end up entwined in a tango, and immigrants who borrow one another's accents. Filled with energy and irreverence, Lost Cities Go to Paradise captures the indignities and excitement of living among others in a society and discovering what is valued-and all that is not.

Winner of the 2020 SAMLA Studies Book Award — Edited Collection Cities both near and far communicate in a variety of ways. Travel between, through, and among urban centers initiates contact, and cities themselves are sites of ever-changing cultural and historical encounters. Predictable and surprising challenges and opportunities arise when city borders are crossed, voices meet, and artistic traditions find their counterparts. Using the Latin word for “translation,� translatio, or “to carry across,� as a point of departure, Avenues of Translation explores how translation perpetuates, diversifies, deepens, and expands the literary production of cities in their greater cultural context, and how translation shapes an understanding of and access to a city's past and present literary and cultural practices. Thinking about translation and the city is a way to tell the backstories of the cities, texts, and authors that are united by acts of translation. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

"Dreams of the Abandoned Seducer" takes place in the new "free market" era of personal choices and relations: a chaotic, sometimes hopeful, often comic world that has supplanted the old order of political terror and clearly demarcated ideological divides. The novel's vaudeville qualities, with characters shuffling on and off the page in rapid succession, are complemented by its exhilarating air of parody. "Dreams" draws ingeniously upon the sentimentality and ephemera of popular culture--quoting radio and TV shows, song lyrics, newspaper items, and bits of gossip-- while also offering a sterner, more nuanced view of public and private relations. It is in large measure this mix of elements--"popular" and "high" culture, sentimentality and political understanding, vaudeville and arch satire--that makes "Dreams" an exemplary postmodern novel.

Winner of the 2020 SAMLA Studies Book Award — Edited Collection Cities both near and far communicate in a variety of ways. Travel between, through, and among urban centers initiates contact, and cities themselves are sites of ever-changing cultural and historical encounters. Predictable and surprising challenges and opportunities arise when city borders are crossed, voices meet, and artistic traditions find their counterparts. Using the Latin word for “translation,� translatio, or “to carry across,� as a point of departure, Avenues of Translation explores how translation perpetuates, diversifies, deepens, and expands the literary production of cities in their greater cultural context, and how translation shapes an understanding of and access to a city's past and present literary and cultural practices. Thinking about translation and the city is a way to tell the backstories of the cities, texts, and authors that are united by acts of translation. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.