Formerly exiled Chilean author Ariel Dorfman is known for such critically acclaimed novels as Widows and the Last Song of Manuel Sendero . A master of various literary forms, Dorfman initially made his mark with studies of popular culture ( How to Read Donald Duck and The Empire’s Old Clothes ). This collection draws together yet another form of Dorfman’s writings - the critical essay. Spanning more than 20 years and arranged in chronological order, the seven essays in this volume (translated into English for the first time) discuss contemporary Latin American writing. Each is devoted to a single author - Miguel Angel Asturias, Jorge Luis Borges, Jose Maria Arguedas, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roa Bastos - and one final essay looks at the testimonial or concentration camp literature from Chile. Although the writing discussed is diverse, common themes unite these pieces. Attentive to the relationship between culture and politics, Dorfman looks to the important role literature can play in the liberation of the people of Latin America and in the formation of national consciousness. At the same time, he explores the ways in which contemporary fiction subverts prevalent power, or submits to it, revealing its underlying character. Finally, these writings can be perused for signals of Dorfman’s own literary evolution and interests. Themes that run throughout his own fiction - violence, the creative intervention of memory, and the role of myth and language in resistance - emerge as organizating categories in the writing of other Latin American writers as well.