McOndo's Anthologised Afterlife

Abstract

The constantly referenced flashpoint of the Latin American literary generation of the 1960s, the McOndo anthology, has experienced a noteworthy but understudied vindication from its original critical backlash in anthologies such as Líneas aéreas, Se habla español: voces latinas en USA, and Les bonnes nouvelles de l'Amérique latine: Anthologie de la nouvelle latinoaméricaine contemporaine. In these, McOndo is not only referenced, but is vindicated and resignified as a pioneering, visionary, and crucial moment for this generation of authors, defining its intervention beyond the negative polemic it provoked and commercial failure it represented when it was first published. These anthologies are as much canonizing moments for the included authors of this generation as much as for the McOndo anthology they reference, significant also for their enunciation from what can be termed the triumvirate of Latin American canonization —the Spanish, United States and French literary fields—, key and mediating spaces in the internationalization of Latin American literature during the 20th and 21st centuries. Show more