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Spanish American Literature
Project Title: Spanish America: a Literary Laboratory
Researcher: Dr Christopher Andrews
Dr Christopher Andrews, the esteemed translator of many of Roberto Bolaño's books and member of the Writing and Society Research Centre, is studying recent fiction by Spanish American writers and how their compositional procedures are related to their political, ethical and aesthetic values. This project is funded by the Australian Research Council through its Discovery Projects grants scheme.
‘Spanish American fiction was an important source of new ideas and techniques for world literature in the 1960s and 70s, explains Dr Andrews. ‘There are signs that Spanish America has again become a literature leader with international successes such as those of novelist Roberto Bolaño (The Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile). In the last two decades Bolaño and novelists César Aira and Rodrigo Rey Rosa have developed inventive and original procedures for writing fiction. But what exactly are these procedures? And how have these ways of writing been influenced by these writers’ values? This project examines these questions and also looks at how these experiments in fiction have been significant and influential for literary writing globally.’
