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9780826357588 Academic Inspection Copy

America Unbound

Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies
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This original contribution to hemispheric American literary studies comprises readings of three important novels from Mexico, Canada, and the United States: Carlos Fuentes's Terra Nostra, Quebecois writer Jacques Poulin's Volkswagen Blues, and Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead. The encyclopedic novel has particular generic characteristics that serve these writers as a vehicle for the reincorporation of hemispheric histories. Starting with an examination of Moby-Dick as precursor, Barrenechea shows how this narrative genre allows Fuentes, Poulin, and Silko to reflect the interconnected world of today, as well as to dramatize indigenous and colonial values in their narratives. His close attention to written documents, visual representations, and oral traditions in these encyclopedic novels sheds light on their comparative cultural relations and the New World from pole to pole. This study amplifies the scope of ""America"" across cultures and languages, time and tradition.
Antonio Barrenechea is an associate professor of English at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA. He lives in Washington, DC.
"America Unbound is truly a significant contribution to not only the burgeoning fields of inter-American and hemispheric approaches to American studies and American literature but also to world literature and comparative literature more broadly." --Review of International American Studies "An outstanding model of the benefits of deeply studying long books. . . . Presents a powerful vindication of comparative literature as a successful critical model." --MFS: Modern Fiction Studies
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