McOndo Revisited: The Making of a Generation Defining Anthology in the Latin American Literature-World

Abstract

The Pan-Hispanic short story anthology “McOndo” (Grijalbo Mondadori Barcelona, 1996), edited by the Chileans Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gómez, was envisaged as a forceful contestation of local and global horizons of expectation in Latin American literature, still fixated with exoticized and politicized narratives most especially in the magical realist style. By drawing on as well as developing a range of theoretical and methodological approaches from World Literature scholarship, McOndo Revisited reconsiders the literary, political, and publishing ecologies which gave rise to this anthology. This rich context, as well as numerous author interviews, informs a holistic analysis of its controversial prologue, short stories, authors, and reception.