The Faculty of Communication and Letters at UDP will hold a discussion panel reflecting on the significance of the anthology "McOndo" and how it shaped a possible map of Spanish literature in the late nineties. The event will also feature the presentation of the book "McOndo Revisited" by Thomas Nulley-Valdés. Published in 1996, "McOndo" is an anthology of stories that described the present state of Spanish-language literature at that time.
Edited by Chilean writers Alberto Fuguet and the recently deceased Sergio Gómez, the included stories constructed a possible map of a late-century Latin America that had experienced dictatorships, transitions, and processes of cultural modernization, questioning how literature related to those phenomena and processes. In this context, the Creative Writing School at Diego Portales University will conduct a discussion panel around "McOndo," analyzing its impact on contemporary Latin American literature, based on the book by academic Thomas Nulley-Valdés, "McOndo Revisited: The Making of a Generation Defining Anthology in the Latin American Literature-World," which examines the volume 30 years after its publication, exploring the extent of its influence and how it constituted both an aesthetic and political gesture. Participants will include Thomas Nulley-Valdés, author and academic from the Australian National University; Alberto Fuguet, UDP academic, author, and compiler of the "McOndo" anthology (along with Sergio Gómez); and Cristián Opazo, dean of the UC School of Letters.
“It is a book that discusses 'McOndo' and poses the question of what that anthology meant 30 years ago and, above all, how it shaped a possible map of Spanish-language literature at that moment. That map offered a vision, a question about a possible continent and how that continent was narrated and represented through literature and language. And how that language made sense in the processes of transition and modernization that were taking place at the end of the 20th century,” explains Álvaro Bisama, director of the Creative Writing School at UDP.
The event will take place on Thursday, March 26, at 4:00 PM, in the TV Studio of the Faculty of Communication and Letters at UDP, located at Vergara 240, floor -1, Santiago.