The Foundation of Latin American Literature and its Emergence in World Literature

Abstract

The obsession to found new imaginary to Latin American reality and sense of rootlessness bestowed Latin American masters of narratives sense of freedom that traverse imaginary pampa, llano and precolombian ruins without any anxiety of influence of precursor. This essay delves into the relationship of foundation of Latin American literature with the emergence of Latin American literature in World Literature. The crossroads of diachronic literary currents of Latin America with synchronic World Republic of Letters will coordinate the topology of its literature in World Literature. There are few Western writers that encompass from the genetic origin of Civilizations to apocalyptic sense of an end. Borges and Paz along with García Márquez are questioning the origin of their being at the edge of the West. The literature of the West is one in which major questions must be assumed to have been solved. The characteristic feature of Latin American masters that differentiate with European writers is their obsession of total history. They share the anxiety of beginning along with anxiety of influence. The sense of up-rootness always goes with new foundation for something whether it is positive or negative in any Latin American fables. And they yearn for the revelation of total history whether it is Macondo as in case of García Márquez, poetic revelation searching for the eternal present as in case of Octavio Paz, or fantastic region like Uqbar with different metaphysical structure that differs from modern world as in case of Borges. This self-referent notion about their own history and geo-political consciousness as being at the edge in narrative and meta-poetics found new Latin American literary canon to mobilize the ground zero of Capital of World Republic of Letters. These local histories from the geo-political periphery change the global design of World Literature.