Explores the dimensions of the coming-of-age novel in the
Spanish-speaking Caribbean and Brazil, focusing on works by eight major
Afro-Latin American writers
The centuries-old European genre of the coming-of-age story has been
transformed by contemporary Afro-Latin American novelists to address key
aspects of the diaspora in various nations of the Caribbean and Latin
America. While attention to Afro-Hispanic and Afro-Brazilian literature
has increased in recent decades, few critics have focused specifically
on the Afro-Latin American Bildungsroman, and fewer still have addressed
novels from both Spanish- and Brazilian-speaking regions, as author
Bonnie Wasserman does in this study.
The memory and continuing impact of slavery especially shape these
coming-of-age stories. Often interwoven with race is a focus on
religion, particularly the importance of African folk religions and
traditions in the lives of young people. Immigration-and the return
journey-is another important theme in the novels.
Coming of Age in the Afro-Latin American Novel discusses
works&emdash;all published around the turn of the 21st century&emdash;by
such important writers as Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa and Mayra Santos-Febres
(from Puerto Rico), Conceição Evaristo and Paulo Lins (from Brazil);
Teresa Cardenas and Pedro Pérez Sarduy (from Cuba); and Junot Diaz and
Rita Indiana (from the Dominican Republic). Wasserman's far-reaching
analysis is both rigorous and compassionate, shedding a clear light on
ways in which descendants of Africans have experienced life in the New
World.
