Aproximaciones a la literatura hispanoamericana

In this little volume Salvador Bueno has published a collection of eighteen essays about literary subjects ranging in time from the Popol Vuh of the sixteenth century to the poetry of Gabriela Mistral in the twentieth. The essays were written originally for publication in newspapers or for public lectures between 1951 and 1967. They present topics of undeniable interest, but unfortunately, Bueno’s approach to his subjects is calculated only to serve the needs of the general reader or beginning students of Latin American literature and contain practically nothing of interest to specialists or even to reasonably well-informed readers. The author’s goal is modest— simply to provide basic facts and a modicum of literary interpretation and criticism—and this he achieves in articles which are usually sound and well written. In the United States, precisely because of these qualities, they might be most useful in undergraduate survey courses on Latin American literature as a supplement to the anthologies which are commonly used.