The question -What is Latin America?- has been at the heart of writing from and about Latin America from Columbus- conquest to present-day discussions and nationalising projects. What this belies is the inherent question -What is Latin America compared to Europe?- This book lays bare the underlying logic of a Latin Americanist discourse through some of the continent-s most influential thinkers, including Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Jos-art-Jos-nrique Rod-, Jos-asconcelos, Fernando Ortiz, Roberto Fern-ez Retamar, N-or Garc-Canclini, and Walter Mignolo.
Civilisation and Authenticity presents case studies of two of Latin America-s most renowned and representative twentieth-century writers, the Cuban Alejo Carpentier and the Argentine Julio Cort-r and reveals how desire to define Latin America is entwined throughout their groundbreaking experimental novels, focusing on Carpentier-s Los pasos perdidos (1953) and Cort-r-s Rayuela (1963). New research into the poetics
