The Accents of Latino Literature

Ilan Stavans and Cristina Garcia join us for a new look at the best of Latino literature, in a new Norton Anthology.

America’s fastest-growing minority – Hispanics – comes with many things, including a literature all its own. It's a vast literature, from the days of the earliest explorers of the Americas to “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”, “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” and “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

It’s a literature of history, and a literature of this moment. “If Walt Whitman could hear America singing now, he would be dancing to this beat,” says Barbara Kingsolver.

Cultural critic Ilan Stavans and author Cristina Garcia join us to talk about the heart of Latino lit.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Ilan Stavans, professor in Latin America and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He's author of "Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Early Years" and the general editor of the new "Norton Anthology of Latino Literature." You can read an excerpt from the introductory essay.

Cristina Garcia, author of "Dreaming in Cuban" and the new novel "The Lady Matador's Hotel."