The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature

In the first study of Latino/a literature to systematically examine the post-Sixties generation of writers, The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature challenges the ways that Latino/a literary studies imagines the relationship of art, politics and the market. Dalleo and Machado Sez engage with the major critics from the field to dispute the consensus view of Latino/a literature from the 1960s as politically committed and resistant to the market versus the literature of the 1990s as apolitical and assimilationist due to its commodification. This study argues that post-Sixties writers Pedro Pietri, Ernesto Quionez, Abraham Rodriguez, Junot Daz, Angie Cruz, Cristina Garcia and Julia Alvarez have not abandoned politics, but are imagining creative strategies for revitalizing progressive thought through the market.

Elena Machado Saez is Assistant Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University.