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At the time that I sent off the first "web pages" to you I hadn't fully explored the lanic site at the University of Texas. Although I still haven't, belatedly I realize that Curbstone is listed and linked under their subject heading of "Publishers." Nor had I seen the link to the magazine Hispanic under their subject heading of "Hispanic." Clearly the lanic site is close to being the last word on Latin America and the Caribbean. As a consequence I'm asking myself exactly what value there is in passing on more web listings or what motivated me to wander out into cyberspace in the first place.
On matters of value ultimately you'll judge for yourself. It may be worth knowing that Hispanic, for example, will take you to other links that don't appear in the lanic index. For this same reason I want to mention a link on Curbstone's web page (RPCV Writers and Readers Web Site http://peacecorpswriters.org/index.htm) that will bring you to a Peace Corps alumni site that lists all the books that their graduates have written. The list is indexed by author and indicates the countries where these writers worked. They give some of their highest marks to Moritz Thomsen's Living Poor and a more recent book by Marnie Mueller, Green Fires: Assault on Eden. Like Moritz, she worked in Ecuador. Her book is published by Curbstone.
All of this anxiety and for what? I'm in awe of the web. Who knows what will come of it? It's an uncharted space for the mind and isn't that enough reason to want to go there?
Booksellers
http://www.westindiesbooks.com
for a growing, if uneven and often stark list of West Indian titles, most of which are fiction. The home page states that the site is being run in an association with amazon.com, the huge on-line book dealer. But what that association amounts to I couldn't tell you. Nevertheless, there are authors and titles listed here that I have never seen anywhere else--in some cases books that have been self-published, in other instances books printed by very obscure publishers indeed. Some of the titles may in fact be out of print and he's selling used or rare books. The only link I saw was to amazon.com, presumably to buy a book that's in stock.
Editor’s note: The relationship between this bookseller and amazon.com that I was describing so inadequately is Amazon’s Associates Program, an online method of paid business referrals for which Amazon succeeded in securing a patent. Patrick Jamieson, the owner of the West Indies Books, has since dropped out of Amazon’s fold and joined the booksellers banded together at http://www.abebooks.com
Personal Pages
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~chernandez
Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar is a grad student and a "Trinnie" who took it upon herself to paste up links to home. Among other things she began compiling a list (in this case nothing more--no publishing information, no titles, just the names) of Caribbean authors of fiction. The list apparently inspired the owner of West Indies Books to set up his web page. The literary titles are only part of her effort to accumulate Caribbean resources that include lists and links, to media, music, film and other cultural sites, most of which are connected to Trinidad. Her pages are a glimpse into how the web has provided an outlet for people abroad (particularly foreign students), not to mention how private interests have spawned on-line commercial ones.
Editor’s note: This address is now a dead link, but Camille continues to push forward in her own writing career, apparently with some success.
http://venezuela.mit.edu/pages.html
the Venezuelans have jumped on the internet with real enthusiasm. Apparently the embassy in Washington hired some students at MIT to design their web site. They then went ahead and contracted for a server. On it you'll find a list--with links--to about two hundred home pages of their citizens, most of whom are apparently working or studying outside of their country. This "community" is quite a portrait of the expatriate sons and daughters of the upper/middle class.
Editor’s note: Alas, this too is a dead link, presumably swept away with the election of a new government in Venezuela in 1999.
E-mail Addresses
http://www.udec.cl/chilenos/listado.html
for a listing of hundreds of e-mail addresses for Chileans working and studying abroad. This directory is on a server at the Universidad de Concepción. Scanning through it has the same appeal as the Venezuelans' home pages. For each entry there are a few lines describing the individual and his or her particular educational or career bent. Although the majority of these Chileans are in the United States there is a surprisingly large group scattered throughout Europe. By and large these are a very professional class of people, with a heavy representation in the hard sciences--just the sort you might expect to have access to and interest in computers. It's a long list, with some links to home pages, and takes quite a while to download.
News
presently neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times carry a complete on-line archive, although The Post promises one soon that will extend back to 1986. However, The Post does maintain an abbreviated news archive from the past month. See the international section for the index/search by region and country. The paper has four correspondents, in Mexico, El Salvador and Chile. It's possible to draw up everything one of these writers has done in the past four weeks. This feature takes some of the anonymity out of reading the news.
Because their archive is only temporary, see the article by Anthony Faiola, "The Sins of a Would-Be Saint," July 26, 1997, before it's dropped.
Editor’s note: Much has changed at The Post during the past five years. Their archive is now finished, but older materials are retrieved for a fee.
On-line Magazines
http://www.latinolink.com
although this site is listed in lanic I want to note a couple of specific items. In the absence of full-text, on-line archives for The New York Times here is one place that you can group together the past articles of some of their Latin correspondents. In particular you can get at some 20 articles by Diana Jean Schemo. (Further along I'll get back to this reporter.) You'll also find a relatively recent article that follows up on Luis J. Rodríguez and his son ("Running From 'La Vida Loca'"). Latino Link appears to be an electronic version of Reader's Digest or The Utne Reader that selects and gathers Latin-related reporting from other publications. You'll also find some book reviews here.
Editor’s note: This site underwent a great deal of change during its existence, as the owner jockeyed for position in the emerging market for ‘ethnic portals.” As of 2001, what had once been a remarkable collection of Latin American news articles, disappeared from the web.
Television
see their archives for a transcript of an hour-long interview with Tina Rosenberg discussing Children of Cain.
Editor’s note: C-Span originally allowed access to transcripts of their “Booknotes” interviews via their address. They have since split off the Booknotes transcripts on a separate website: http://www.booknotes.org The written transcript of the Rosenberg interview can now be found on this site. Several interesting interviews have also been added in the interim (with streaming video): Alma Guillermoprieto discussing Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America and Eugene Robinson talking about his book, Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race.
-August 19, 1999
