The Catastrophe of Modernity

Tragedy and the Nation in Latin American Literature
The Catastrophe of Modernity examines four very different Latin American writers in the context of their respective national traditions. In a series of sophisticated and challenging theoretical readings of texts by Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, César Vallejo, and Ricardo Piglia, Patrick Dove persuasively argues that the idea of tragedy offers new ways of understanding the relation between literature and the modern Latin American nation-state. Powerfully argued, The Catastrophe of Modernity brings together Latin American texts with important contemporary concepts in philosophical and theoretical criticism, enabling those concepts in relation to tragedy to emerge from Dove's discussion with greater clarity and renewed interest.