Contemporary Latin American Literature: Original Selections from the Literary Giants for Intermediate and Advanced Students

I bought this as some sort of follow through after finishing my reading of the Classic Spanish Stories and Plays (Spanish Reader Series). Browsing through some of the works, it does seem to me that the reader must at least be upper intermediate or advanced in Spanish to fully enjoy this anthology. I understand that the works are unabridged, in their original length and form, so they're a little harder for the average learner. I recommend getting this book if you plan to buy Classic Spanish Stories and Plays, which you may read first to get a good handle on Spanish then move on to the Contemporary Latin American Literature.

Buy two copies, give one to your best Spanish-speaking friend, and keep the other to give to your grandchildren after you've worn it out.

I've spoken Spanish since the age of 13 (I'm 60 now) and have been married to a native speaker of Spanish (Puerto Rico) for almost 30 years. Although I don't live in an Hispanic country, my exposure to Spanish is almost on a daily basis, mostly by virtue of household conversations and satellite television programs. What I've always found useful to keep my language active at a professionally competent level are well-chosen anthologies of literary excerpts by established authors in their original format. This anthology delivers exactly that. Ms. Varona-Lacey has done a fine job of selecting from across a wide spectrum of genres to not only introduce popular authors to an interested audience, but also to ensure that the level of difficulty is just right to provide that linguistic challenge to those who want to raise their non-native fluency in the language to higher levels of expertise. Technical and seldom-encountered words are glossed and explained below the page of text, as well as brief explanations of historical personages/events to facilitate comprehension. Her selection of authors is quite inclusive and I cannot think of anyone to add to her list of contributors, although no doubt other reviewers can probably come up with a name or two. I hold a PhD in Foreign Language Education and am a former university professor of both Arabic and Spanish. I would have loved to have used this selection in my third or fourth year Spanish classes had it been available when I was still teaching.

This book contains short stories, poems, and excerpts from a variety of well-known latin american authors such as Octavio Paz, Isabel Allende, Carlos Fuentes, and Pablo Neruda. Each selection includes an introduction of the author, pre-reading notes, footnotes of difficult words with English translation, and post-reading questions.