Spanish-American literature first caught the attention of a world-wide readership in the 1960s, but it has a continuous tradition stretching back to the Conquest. This introduction retraces that history, with sections on the major literary writers and works of Spanish America from the Conquest to the present, ranging from the Popol Vuh (the bible of the Mayas) to Isabel Allende's novel on contemporary Chile, The House of the Spirits.