Mariano Azuela, the first of the novelists of the Revolution, was born in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico, in 1873. He studied medicine in Guadalajara and returned to Lagos in 1909, where he began the practice of his profession. He began his writing career early; in 1896 he published Impressions of a Student in a weekly of Mexico City. This was followed by numerous sketches and short stories, and in 1911 by his first novel, Andres Perez, maderista. Like most of the young Liberals, he supported Francisco I. Madero's uprising, which overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, and in 1911 was made Director of Education of the State of Jalisco. After Madero's assassination, he joined the army of Pancho Villa as doctor, and his knowledge of the Revolution was acquired at firsthand. When the counterrevolutio-nary forces of Victoriano Huerta were temporarily triumphant, he emigrated to El Paso, Texas, where in 1915 he wrote The Underdogs (Los de abajo), which did not receive general recognition until 1924, when it was hailed as the novel of the Revolution.

Argentina's best-known writer during his lifetime, Leopoldo Lugones's work spans many literary styles and ideological positions. He was influential as a modernist poet, as a precursor of the avant-garde, and also as the poet of Argentine nature. His short stories (Las Fuerzas Extranas: 1906) were early examples of the fantastic in Latin American fiction and influenced Borges, Quiroga, and others They reflect an interest in the uncanny and inspired contemporary interest in animism and occultism because the protagonists of many the stories were scientists and doctors experimenting in the transmutation of thought. His prose works include La Guerra Gaucha (1905) and the essay El Payador (1916) in which he idealized the gaucho as a heroic figure, popular poet, and a symbol of Argentine identity. Lugones altered his political views many times, adopting radical anarchism, and later in life, fascism. He was therefore a controversial figure, both accalimed and scorned by his contemporaries. His adherence to the importance of literary form drew criticism from the new generation of writers, such as Borges, but Borges later stated in 1955 that "Lugones was and continues to be the greatest Argentine writer."

Juana Mauela Gorriti (1818-1892) is one of the outstanding women writers of nineteenth-century Argentina. She wrote in various genres from fiction and travelogues to cookbooks and essays and she edited a number of literary reviews in Lima and Buenos Aires, where she put women's issues before the public.

Widely acclaimed throughout Latin America after its 1992 release in Argentina, "The Absent City" takes the form of a futuristic detective novel. In the end, however, it is a meditation on the nature of totalitarian regimes, on the transition to democracy after the end of such regimes, and on the power of language to create and define reality. Ricardo Piglia combines his trademark avant-garde aesthetics with astute cultural and political insights into Argentina's history and contemporary condition in this conceptually daring and entertaining work.
The novel follows Junior, a reporter for a daily Buenos Aires newspaper, as he attempts to locate a secret machine that contains the mind and the memory of a woman named Elena. While Elena produces stories that reflect on actual events in Argentina, the police are seeking her destruction because of the revelations of atrocities that she--the machine--is disseminating through texts and taped recordings. The book thus portrays the race to recover the history and memory of a city and a country where history has largely been obliterated by political repression. Its narratives--all part of a detective story, all part of something more--multiply as they intersect with each other, like the streets and avenues of Buenos Aires itself.
The second of Piglia's novels to be translated by Duke University Press--the first was "Artifical Respiration"--this book continues the author's quest to portray the abuses and atrocities that characterize dictatorships as well as the difficulties associated with making the transition to democracy. Translated and with an introduction by Sergio Waisman, it includes a new afterword by the author.