Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America - by Jerónimo Arellano (Paperback)

About the Book

Newly available in paperback, this iconoclastic study draws on affect theory, the history of emotions, and new materialism to reconsider magical realism in the works of Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, and César Aira.

Book Synopsis

Newly available in paperback, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America is the first study of affect and emotion in magical realist literature. Against the grain of a vast body of scholarship, it argues that magical realism is neither exotic commodity nor postcolonial resistance, but an art form fueled by a search for wonder in a disenchanted world. Linking magical realism's rise and fall to the shifting value of wonder as an emotional experience, Arellano proposes a radical new approach to canonical novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude. Received as "one of the most convincing manifestations of the 'turn to affect' in contemporary Latin American critical thought," this iconoclastic study draws on affect theory, the history of emotions, and new materialism to reframe key questions in Latin American literature and culture.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

About the Author

JERÓNIMO ARELLANO is an assistant professor of Latin American literature at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.