Enrico Mario Santí gathers here thirty years´ worth of essays on Latin American literature and literary theory. The title reflects his enduring interest in the history, literature and culture of Cuba, subject of many of the essays. While most of the book deals with literature —ranging from aspects of canonical Latin American figures like Borges, Neruda and Paz, to Caribbean exceptionality and the pedagogy of Cultural Studies— some of it intersects forays into history, politics and art, including music. Indeed, such intersection, polemical perhaps, constitutes the essays’ common theme and makes them timely, too, particularly today, when culture rather than literature, or art, or even politics, is meant to carry the day for civic responsibility in critical work.

Born in Cuba and raised both there and the U.S., Santí´s rich contributions to the study of major Latin American figures —Martí, Neruda, Lezama Lima, Paz— are evident both in his ten published books and sixteen critical editions (including the landmark “Canto general” and “El laberinto de la soledad”) and in his teaching at major universities like Cornell and Georgetown, and at the University of Kentucky, where he held the first William T. Bryan Chair in Hispanic Studies. Currently, Santí is Research Professor at Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California.