A new perspective on Pinochet's repressive regime and its aftermath in Chile, looking at the ambiguous experiences and memories of army draftees who became both criminals and victims in an era of brutality.

The author, one of the most influential Latin Americanists in the US, has published a number of books, but none display the importance of her work in literary criticism, cultural studies and marxist and feminist theory as successfully as this collection o

This is a study of the history of global refugee movements over the 20th century, ranging from east European Jews fleeing Tsarist oppression at the turn of the century to asylum seekers from the former Zaire and Yugoslavia. Recognizing that the problem of refugees is a universal one, the authors emphasize the human element which should be at the forefront of both the study of refugees and responses to them.

Numerous studies concerning transitional justice exist. However, comparatively speaking, the effects actually achieved by measures for coming to terms with dictatorships have seldom been investigated. There is an even greater lack of transnational analyses. This volume contributes to closing this gap in research. To this end, it analyses processes of coming to terms with the past in seven countries with different experiences of violence and dictatorship. Experts have drawn up detailed studies on transitional justice in Albania, Argentina, Ethiopia, Chile, Rwanda, South Africa and Uruguay. Their analyses constitute the empirical material for a comparative study of the impact of measures introduced within the context of transitional justice. It becomes clear that there is no sure formula for dealing with dictatorships. Successes and deficits alike can be observed in relation to the individual instruments of transitional justice - from criminal prosecution to victim compensation. Nevertheless, the South American states perform much better than those on the African continent. This depends less on the instruments used than on political and social factors. Consequently, strategies of transitional justice should focus more closely on these contextual factors.

On September 11, 1973, Chile's General Pinochet led a quick and brutal military coup ousting the Allende government. Ignacio Lopez-Calvo argues that the rise of the Pinochet dictatorship and the subsequent imprisonment of any Allende sympathizers shaped Chilean narrative into two structural forms: liberationist narrative--cathartic, journalistic testimonies that provide models for revolutionary behavior against authoritarianism and demystifying narrative, which uses the events of 1973, as well as the colonial aspirations of European countries, as a "Paradise Lost" backdrop in which the characters of this type of fiction are able to create their non-political realities that become models of democratization.

The cultural Cold War in Latin America was waged as a war of values--artistic freedom versus communitarianism, Western values versus national cultures, the autonomy of art versus a commitment to liberation struggles--and at a time when the prestige of literature had never been higher. The projects of the historic avant-garde were revitalized by an anti-capitalist ethos and envisaged as the opposite of the republican state. The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City charts the conflicting universals of this period, the clash between avant-garde and political vanguard. This was also a twilight of literature at the threshold of the great cultural revolution of the seventies and eighties, a revolution to which the Cold War indirectly contributed. In the eighties, civil war and military rule, together with the rapid development of mass culture and communication empires, changed the political and cultural map. A long-awaited work by an eminent Latin Americanist widely read throughout the world, this book will prove indispensable to anyone hoping to understand Latin American literature and society. Jean Franco guides the reader across minefields of cultural debate and histories of highly polarized struggle. Focusing on literary texts by Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, Roa Bastos, and Juan Carlos Onetti, conducting us through this contested history with the authority of an eyewitness, Franco gives us an engaging overview as involving as it is moving.