Costa Rican novelist Fabian Dobles (1918-1997) is arguably one of the most important formative writers within the context of Costa Rican and Central American literary history. Yet until now there has been no book-length analysis in either English or Spanish of his narrative contributions. Isolated studies generally place him within the realist and regionalist tendencies of the period and emphasize his mimetic representation of the world. This book, however, reevaluates Dobles' novels and short stories from the perspective of subaltern and postcolonial studies and offers the first theoretically consistent, comprehensive analysis of his narrative corpus.

With a focus both historical and literary, Enrique Anderson-Imbert surveys the literature of Hispanic America. His study is not merely an historical synthesis of names, titles, and dates; it is, rather, a critical analytical appraisal of the verse, prose, and drama written in Spanish in the Americas in the contemporary period.

In "Metaphors," Samuel Rovinski (Costa Rica) shows how a writer's superficial attempt to interpret experience metaphorically cripples him in social circumstances, while, in "Gloria Wouldn't Wait," Panamanian Jaime Garcia Saucedo focuses on the egotism of the writer's imagination as it tries to convert the tragedies of everyday life into some kind of literary document whose artistic qualities would belie their actual reality." "Human - and humane - values in the face of adversity are celebrated throughout, even when seemingly futile in the midst of overwhelming odds. Contemporary Short Stories from Central America embraces every aspect of the human condition addressed by the literature of the Western world and demonstrates the cultural vitality of our Central American neighbors."--BOOK JACKET.