Anthology of Spanish American Thought and Culture

“The texts stitch past and present in a tapestry that in its warp and weft maps out the vastness of continental cultures.”—Ileana Rodríguez, author of Liberalism at Its Limits: Crime and Terror in the Latin American Cultural Text

“A first-rate, unique gathering of key texts and images from throughout Spanish America, ranging from pre-Hispanic myths and stories through some astounding Colonial personalities and speculations and to developments and fresh evaluations from our twenty-first century.”—Gene H. Bell-Villada, coauthor of Writing Out of Limbo: International Childhoods, Global Nomads and Third Culture Kids

This landmark anthology brings together more than sixty myths, poems, memoirs, manifestos, and works of fiction translated from Spanish to English, some for the first time. Anthology of Spanish American Thought and Culture is an ambitious introduction to Spanish American thought and culture, featuring historiographies by mestizo intellectuals of the Colonial periods; thought-pieces by eighteenth-century Jesuits; personal accounts by indigenous authors, women in struggle, labor activists; and excerpts from Reinaldo Arenas, the exiled gay Cuban novelist.

From disciplines including history, politics, anthropology, religion, literature, art, and architecture and written by famous historical figures such as Simón Bolívar, José Martí, and Che Guevara, alongside lesser-known individuals, the texts are united by a shared quest for cultural identity. Representing many different moments in the complex history of an extraordinary region, the key question the texts in this volume confront is “Who are we?” The answers are often surprising.

Jorge Aguilar Mora is professor emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland. His many books include El silencio de la Revolución and Sueños de la razón: 1799 y 1800 Umbrales del siglo XIX. Josefa Salmón, Rev. Guy Lemieux Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Loyola University New Orleans, is the author or editor of several books, including El espejo indígena:  El discurso indigenista en Bolivia 1900–1956. Barbara C. Ewell, the Dorothy H. Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, is the author of Kate Chopin.