The Afro-Latin@ Experience in Contemporary American Literature and Culture

This book *examines contemporary Afro-Latin@ literature and its depiction of the multifaceted identity encompassing the separate identifications of Americans and the often-conflicting identities of blacks and Latin@s. The Afro-Latin@ Experience in Contemporary American Literature and Culture* highlights the writers' aims to define Afro-Latin@ identity, to rewrite historical narratives so that they include the Afro-Latin@ experience and to depict the search for belonging. Their writing examines the Afro-Latin@ encounter with race within the US and exposes the trauma resulting from the historical violence of colonialism and slavery.

Analyzes literature across various forms ranging from novels to poetry to hip-hop Offers one of the first comparative analysis of Afro-Latin@ writers and experiences of blackness, working to dig deeper than any study before it to conceptualize what defines Afro-Latin@ literature Examines the growing commitment of Afro-Latin@ writers to excavate historical silences and to reimagine official national narratives by inserting the traditionally repressed voices of Afro-Latin@s

Autorentext

Jill Toliver Richardson is Assistant Professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY), USA where she teaches Contemporary Urban Writers and Latina/o Literature and composition. She was a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship and has previously published in the journals Label Me Latina/o and CENTRO.

Inhalt

Introduction.- Chapter One: Enduring the Curse: The Legacy of Inter-generational Trauma in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao .- Chapter Two:Haunting Legacies: Forging Afro-Dominican Women's Identity in Loida Maritza Pérez's Geographies of Home.- Chapter Three:'Boricua, Moreno': Laying Claim to Blackness in the Post-Civil Rights Era.- Chapter Four: Afro-Latin Magical Realism, Historical Memory, Identity, and Space in Angie Cruz's Soledad and Nelly Rosario's Song of the Water Saints .- Chapter Five: Memory and the Afro-Cuban Missing Link in H.G. Carrillo's Loosing My Espanish.- Conclusion: Conceptualizing Afro-Latinidad.