The usable past
Subtitle: the imagination of history in recent fiction of the Americas
By: Lois Parkinson Zamora.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 257
Subjects: Spanish American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; History in literature.; Literature and history -- America.; Intertextuality.
Description: The Usable Past presents a comparative discussion of American literary modes of historical imagining. Taking America in its hemispheric sense, Lois Parkinson Zamora presents a broad-ranging discussion of essential American voices - among them Borges, Hawthorne, Emerson, Williams, Paz, Carpentier, Cather, Fuentes, Cortazar, Rulfo, Cisneros, Puig, Vargas Llosa, Morrison. These writers dramatize the convergences and divergences of history and fiction as they question the nature of both. Zamora argues that they are impelled by a peculiarly American energy - what she calls an "anxiety of origins"--To search for precursors and connect to (or invent) usable traditions and histories.

They conceive of originality not as novelty but as a complicated and enriched relation to their cultural traditions. How American writers thematize usable American pasts, and how their work itself becomes part of the usable past, is Zamora's overarching concern.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-248) and index.