Vanishing Points / Puntos de fuga : Contemporary Salvadoran Prose

Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Latinx Studies. Edited by Tania Pleitez Vela, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, Lucía de Sola. What do we mean when we refer to contemporary Salvadoran literature? As a response to this question the coordinating editors of this anthology present a selection of texts written in the 2000's by Salvadorans of different generations. Written in Spanish and translated into English (and, in some cases, vice versa), these prose pieces are true vanishing points; each one follows a unique trajectory. Although some authors revisit the effects of the country's civil war in the 80's, they do so from an angle that breaks from traditional testimonial literature; other authors depict the country's current situation. In this collection, the characters roam the mountains of wartime El Salvador, they transit gang-infested neighborhoods, they ride the rails atop The Beast that takes them to the United States; in El Salvador they hide their books as violence encroaches, they beg for coins on the streets of a small town, they are locked up in a military school, they float to the ceiling in a barren house. In other stories set in the era of globalization, characters navigate European or North American cities and places of dream-like wonder or of nightmares; the authors addresses universal subjects: egotism, violence against women, desire, and abandonment. This collection is an essential guide to the exploration of new trajectories in Salvadoran prose.




Contributors: Ignacio Sarmiento Pérez (prologue), Miguel Huezo Mixco, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Carmen González Huguet, Rafael Menjívar Ochoa, Jacinta Escudos, Oscar García, Claudia Castro Luna, Harrison López, Nancy Gutiérrez, Elena Salamanca, Oscar Martínez, Ana Escoto, Olivia Olivia, Alejandro Córdova, Andreas Portillo.




Translators: Lawrence Schimel, Dave Foxall, Marianne Choquet, Yesenia Santibañez, Harrison López, Jessica Rainey, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, Emilie Delcourt, Daniela Maria Ugaz, John Washington, Lucía de Sola.