Knives and angels

This book offers insights into a range of major Latin American women writers whose works are only just beginning to be known by English-speaking readers. The majority of Latin American writers now well-known to the English-speaking world are men; this collection of essays from a wide range of nationalities, aims to redress the balance by instead focusing on women's writing. Included are chapters on the impact of critics such as Victoria Ocampo, who changes the face of the Latin American literary scene; on Chilean playwrights, Nicaraguan revolutionary poets, Columbian women's writing; interviews with the novelist Margo Glantz, and with the film director Maria Luisa Bemberg. Also features are studies of such novelists as the starkly realist Elena Poniatowska, and the lyrically surrealist Maria Luisa Bombal; and an essay on Clarice Lispector by her official English language translator. This collection offers a variety of approaches and aims to demonstrate the extraordinary power and vitality of women writers selected from a wide range of Latin American countries- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, among others - whose works are attaining international recognition. This is a book for interested general readers, especially those concerned with women writers, as well as for literature students.