{"id":1837,"date":"2010-04-10T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T18:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8182002200449700033.post-358337334775785488"},"modified":"2010-04-10T11:36:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T19:36:01","slug":"flipping-the-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/2010\/04\/10\/flipping-the-coin\/","title":{"rendered":"Flipping the coin."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The most interesting part of this course for me has come at the end with the comparison of McOndo and Macondo.  As a HUGE fan of magical realism, I was at first thrown off with the mission statement of McOndo&#8217;s editors&#8230;..Why would they want to criticize such a beautiful genre of writing?  But after reading a few of the stories within the collaborative work, I realize that they are right: Latin America was being stereotyped, and in a big way.  Reading the works of authors who are young, innovative, and not well-known is always an eye-opening event.  I certainly didn&#8217;t enjoy all of them that I read (ie: &#8220;Mi estado f\u00edsico&#8221;&#8230;.sorry, boring), but on the whole they delved into a Latin America that we don&#8217;t usually see, but that we can all relate to.  Why?  Because it is a world almost identical to ours. <\/p>\n<p>McOndo dances around with the idea of globalization.  It&#8217;s ironic that they were searching for the true flavour of Latin American literature, and ended up with an interrelation of all things human.  Well, maybe not ALL things human&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I say this because I was surprised at the utter lack of female author representation in McOndo.  What does this tell us?   That Latin America does not <span >have<\/span> female writers?   That their work is sub-par?  That they are not supported?   Clearly, Latin America <span >has <\/span>female writers (many of them celebrated&#8230;although we know Jon&#8217;s thoughts on Laura Esquivel!)  The last scenario is perhaps more the case.  Where are these unsupported, unknown female writers, and why didn&#8217;t McOndo track them down in order to add them to the shortlist of young and upcoming Latin American writers?   Now, I&#8217;m not a feminist or on a mission to bring Latin American women into the limelight for whatever their achievements in writing are (ah, see&#8230;.total ignorance on that subject!); but c&#8217;mon editors, let&#8217;s not be <span >too <\/span>one-sided here!   Show the world <span >all<\/span> of the identities enveloped in that phrase of<span > <span ><span ><span ><span >&#8220;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Latin American Writers<span ><span ><span ><span ><span >&#8220;.  <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Overall, this course was a pleasure.  It has piqued my interest in magical realism and provided background and insight into its method and symbolism.  Once again, rounding the course out with a book dedicated to changing the perspective on Latin American writing was an engaging concept.  I may still attribute some of the best magical realism out there to the writers of Latin America, but at least now I have witnessed the other side of that coin.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8182002200449700033-358337334775785488?l=themuse365.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most interesting part of this course for me has come at the end with the comparison of McOndo and Macondo.  As a HUGE fan of magical realism, I was at first thrown off with the mission statement of McOndo&#8217;s editors&#8230;..Why would they want to critic&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6929],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-span-365"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1837"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1837\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}