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Dear Ted,
What follows, hopefully in regular installments, is casual commentary on the Caribbean and Latin American literature that has interested me. Perhaps something here will capture your fancy and guide next winter’s reading. I make no bones about being unrepresentative and incomplete. That sort of industriousness I'll leave to my former colleagues in the academy.
Nor do I make any secret of my debt to Carmen by undertaking this personal literary record. Her fierce pride in Venezuela, her awestruck tone when describing the South American continent, were inspirations that unlocked much in my imagination. More than once she said she hoped to travel the length and breadth of this hemisphere to see it firsthand.
And more than once I’ve wondered if there is a political equivalent in Bolívar's transcendent vision of a united South America, that unfinished "Colombian" experiment.
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So I'm off to live vicarious lives, in many instances exploring, in others merely reporting on old finds, to hold off boredom for a bit and share in Carmen's dream.
P.S. The books by Vargas Llosa and Cortázar arrived this morning. Many thanks.
