Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Literature in the United States: The Literature of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Other Hispanic Writers

(Hardback)

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Description

This dictionary provides a reference guide to representative figures in Hispanic literature within the geographic, political and cultural boundaries of the United States. While concentrating on contemporary writers who have made or promise to make a lasting contribution to multi-ethnic letters in the USA, it is designed to make accessible to the English-language reader a literary world that has until now been articulated primarily in Spanish. Focusing mainly on Puerto Rican and Cuban writers, each entry summarizes the importance of the subject and indicates the literary genres and themes cultivated. There is a brief biography of each author, an analysis of major works and themes and a survey of the criticism of the author's works. This detailed sourcebook is a compilation of bio-bibliographical essays on leading Hispanic novelists, poets and dramatics, and includes secondary bibliographies for each entry as well as a general bibliography on Hispanic Miguel Pinero, winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play; Chilean novelist, critic and editor Fernando Alegria; the Cuban-American chronicler of life in Miami's exile community, Roberto Fernandez, and others. This work answers a need for comprehensive biographical and critical information on these writers.

Reviews

. . . Kanellos provides the non-Hispanic scholar with a comprehensive survey of the most important of the Latin American writers who have made the States home or come temporarily to this country. . . Highly recommended for those libraries serving undergraduate programs on Hispanic literatures.-Library Journal
Like similar biobibliographic dictionaries from this publisher, for instance Fifty Caribbean Writers, ed. by D.C. Dance, this compilation by 36 US academics and a West German provides excellent information on the writers it includes: Biography, ' Major Themes, ' Survey of Criticism, ' and Bibliography' (active and passive), totaling from 2 to 16 pages. . . . Kanellos's claim is to have concentrated on contemporary writers who have made, or promise to make, a lasting contribution to multiethnic letters' in the US and Puerto Rico. Contemporary' in the case of his 15 Cuban exiles means post-Castro, but his 16 Puerto Rican islanders include 3 who died over 30 years ago. There are also 16 Nuyoricans, 10 of whom write in English, a Costa Rican, a Peruvian, and a US-born Cuban American. The preface provides brief introductions titled Puerto Rican Literature' and Cuban American and Cuban Exile Literature.' A very useful source for any library with a concern for modern US Hispanic literature.-Choice
This book promises to be a very useful reference work, covering material that has heretofore been hard to find.-Reference Books Bulletin
." . . Kanellos provides the non-Hispanic scholar with a comprehensive survey of the most important of the Latin American writers who have made the States home or come temporarily to this country. . . Highly recommended for those libraries serving undergraduate programs on Hispanic literatures."-Library Journal
"This book promises to be a very useful reference work, covering material that has heretofore been hard to find."-Reference Books Bulletin
"Like similar biobibliographic dictionaries from this publisher, for instance Fifty Caribbean Writers, ed. by D.C. Dance, this compilation by 36 US academics and a West German provides excellent information on the writers it includes: Biography, ' Major Themes, ' Survey of Criticism, ' and Bibliography' (active and passive), totaling from 2 to 16 pages. . . . Kanellos's claim is to have concentrated on contemporary writers who have made, or promise to make, a lasting contribution to multiethnic letters' in the US and Puerto Rico. Contemporary' in the case of his 15 Cuban exiles means post-Castro, but his 16 Puerto Rican islanders include 3 who died over 30 years ago. There are also 16 Nuyoricans, 10 of whom write in English, a Costa Rican, a Peruvian, and a US-born Cuban American. The preface provides brief introductions titled Puerto Rican Literature' and Cuban American and Cuban Exile Literature.' A very useful source for any library with a concern for modern US Hispanic literature."-Choice

Author Bio

NICOLAS KANELLOS is Professor of Hispanic and Classical Languages at the University of Houston. He is the editor of Latino Short Fiction (with Luis Davila), Nuevos Pasos: Chicano and Puerto Rican Drama (with Jorge Huerta), and the author of Mexican American Theatre Then and Now and The History of Hispanic Theatre in the United States until 1940.