Table of Contents

Introduction - The Search for Meaning: Symbols, Anti-Symbols and the CenterChapter One - Religions to the Margins: Spatial Reconfigurations in Miguel Ángel Asturias’ El Señor Presidente
Chapter Two - Caminos of No Return: Multiple Pathways to Eternity in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo
Chapter Three - From the Center to the Limits of Existence in José Donoso’s El lugar sin límites
Chapter Four - Undermining Redemption: Inverted God and Christ Figures
Chapter Five - Saved with a Kiss: Figures of Betrayal—Judas Iscariot, the Priest, and the Evangelist
Conclusion- All Hell Breaks Loose

About the Author

Patricia E. Reagan is associate professor of Spanish at Randolph-Macon College

Reviews

One of the abiding myths of Latin American culture is that it is grounded in Catholic symbolism and should be read as such. While this is partially true, it underestimates the continuing enormous pull of a complex range of indigenous faiths, often seen as minor decorative arts, and of non-Catholic faiths such as Judaism, Pentocostal sects, and now Mormonism. In this context, a careful examination of the deconstructing of Catholic myths and dogmas, such as that provided by Deconstructing Paradise, is all the more suggestive because of how it can lead to the very non-traditionally Catholic of contemporary Latin American religions.
*David William Foster, Arizona State University*

While a number of critics of the Latin American New Novel have identified and interpreted a range of inverted Christian images, the originality of this book is that it brings together such instances in order to identify a pattern or trend that actually characterizes twentieth-century Latin American fiction. This is an important and overdue contribution to mainstream conceptions of the nueva narrativa.
*Philip Swanson, Hughes Professor of Spanish, University of Sheffield*