Novel Distortions: Postnationalism and Literary Form in Mexico and Central America

The novel emerged in lockstep with the nation-state, serving as the cultural counterpart to political form in the modern era. However, these dynamics are unraveling as the raison d’être of the contemporary state veers from its people to the neoliberal market. In Novel Distortions, Tamara L. Mitchell analyzes recent (1996–’) Mexican and Central American fiction and theorizes this emergent epoch through the lens of postnationalism, which describes the altered but still active role of the patr...