The Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Bildungsroman

How contemporary Latin American and Latinx writers transform the bildungsroman genre to explore the present and imagine possible futures

This volume explores how twenty-first-century Latin American and Latinx writers and filmmakers are redefining the bildungsroman or coming-of-age story genre within today’s socioeconomic, cultural, and technological contexts, including the fractures of colonial history, inequality, authoritarianism, and forced migration.

Bringing together novels, films, and television from across the Americas, the collection reveals protagonists who forge connections not through the nation-state but through alternative forms of community. Indigenous, Afro Latin American, queer, and migrant youth seek belonging in local and transnational communities through punk, reggaeton, skating, comics, videogames, and other cultural expressions. From an Afro Caribbean “bruja bildungsroman” to narratives shaped by social media culture and queer autoethnography, these works highlight the struggle to reconcile the self with exclusionary societies. The Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Bildungsroman illuminates how these young protagonists shape their societies through resistance and by imagining different futures.