Excellent work of reference, up-to-date to 1999 , that presents a general panorama, in four hundred pages, of Latin American Literature especially from the boom, but with chapters that refer to the predecessors such as Arlt, Macedonio Fernández and Arévalo Martínez. Divided in chapters for periods or schools, with ample sections dedicated to each author, where (it) makes complete and documented analysis of their work. It has, in addition, good indexes, for authors and for works. It offers a useful and interesting critical biography, and the final chapter is specially innovating, where it approaches the discussion about those writers subsequent to the boom. It treats the distinction of these, originated in the Anglo-Saxon critic, between writers of post-boom and post-modern writers, considered inside of the first to Skármeta, Isabel Allende and others, and inside of the second to Néstor Sánchez, Sarduy, Salvador Elizondo, Diamela Eltit, Carmen Boullosa and Ricardo Piglia. The difference between both schools, (debatable division, diffuse and changing) consists of: that the post-boom proposes to do without the technical devices of the boom, practicing a literature more accessible and founded in a commitment with the political and social reality of the region, whereas the post-moderns prolong and at times carry to extreme this technical aspect of the boom, and have a more personalistic and existential sense. The chapters: I) Introduction. The Hispanic American novelist and their imperatives. II) Realism and fantasy. A key date, 1940. (Rafael Arévalo Martínez, Roberto Arlt, Macedonio Fernández, Felisberto Hernández).
III) A decade of transition, 1940-1950: Those from the River Plate region ( Borges, Leopoldo Marechal, Ernesto Sábato, Juan Carlos Onetti). IV): Neoindigenism and magic realism. (José María Arguedas, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier) V)The Boom. (Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa). VI)The Boom II. (Juan Rulfo, Roa Bastos, José Donoso, Lezama Lima, Cabrera Infante). VII)Other writers. (Fernando del Paso, Reinaldo Arenas, Bryce Echenique, Puig) VIII)The Boom: conclusion. Tendencies within the new novel. Ambiguity and pessimism. The rising against the realistic tradition. Humor and eroticism. Technical innovations. "Interior subversions" IX)The testimonial narrative and the post-boom (The testimonial narrative, The post-boom, From Boom to post-boom) X) Some writers of post-boom (Isabel Allende, Skármeta, Luisa Valenzuela, Rosario Ferré, Gustavo Sainz, Laura Esquivel, Angeles Mastreta) XI)Towards the post-modernism. (Néstor Sánchez, Sarduy, Salvador Elizondo, Diamela Eltit, Carmen Boullosa, Ricardo Piglia) XII)Post-boom and post-modernism: conclusion. Shaw, Donald. Nueva Narrativa Hispanoamericana. Boom, posboom, posmodernismo. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1999(Shaw, Donald. New Hispanic American Narrative. Boom, post-boom, post-modernism. Madrid: Cátedra Edition, 1999)