The Literature of Catastrophe: Nature, Disaster and Revolution in Latin America

Description

This book investigates how nature and history intertwined during the violent aftermath of the Latin American Wars of Independence. Synthesizing intellectual history and readings of textual production, The Literature of Catastrophe reimagines the emergence of the modern Latin American nation-states beyond the scope of the harmonious "foundational fictions" that marked the emergence of the nation as an organic community. Through a study of philosophical, literary and artistic representations of three catastrophic figures - earthquakes, volcanoes and epidemics - this book provides a critical model through which to refute these state-sponsored "happy narratives," proposing instead that the emergence of the modern state in Latin America was indeed a violent event whose aftershocks are still felt today. Engaging a variety of sources and protagonists, from Simon Bolivar's manifestoes to Cesar Aira's use of landscape in his novels, from the revolutionary role mosquitoes had within the Haitian Revolution to the role AIDS played in the writing of Reinaldo Arenas' posthumous novel, Carlos Fonseca offers an original retelling of this foundational moment, recounting how history has become a site where the modern division between nature and culture collapses.

Carlos Fonseca is Lecturer in Latin American Literature and Culture and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK. He is the author of Coronel Lagrimas (2015), Museo animal (2017), and the book of essays La lucidez del miope (2017), which won the National Prize for Literature in Costa Rica.

In this beautifully written book Carlos Fonseca offers a forceful account of what he calls the catastrophic paradigm of history in Latin America, proceeding by way of shock and aftershock to present ways in which writers have coped with three types of disaster or catastrophe: earthquakes, volcanic explosions, and epidemics. This is a must-read for literary scholars, cultural historians, and critical theorists alike. * Bruno Bosteels, Professor of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University, USA, and author of Marx and Freud in Latin America (2012) * The Literature of Catastrophe sheds new light on catastrophe as a literary subject and pervasive trope in Latin American cultural history. Fonseca's daring hypothesis on catastrophe as the point of disruption that unsettles the progressive ordering of time and history is particularly effective. His intervention in the ongoing debate on the Anthropocene and our planet's disjointed times is of utmost relevance. * Julio Ramos, Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Berkeley, USA, and author of Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (1989, 2001) *