Visible Dissent

As Teresa Longos groundbreaking examination reveals, North Americas dissident literature has its roots in the Latin American literary tradition. From Pablo Nerudas Canto General to Eduardo Galeanos Open Veins of Latin America to Gabriel Garca Mrquezs One Hundred Years of Solitudeamong otherscontemporary writers throughout the Americas have forced us to reconsider the United Statess relationship with Latin America, and more broadly with the Global South. Highlighting the importance of reading and re-reading the Latin American canon in the United States, Longo finds that literature can be an instrument of progressive social change, and argues that small literary pressesCity Lights, Curbstone, and Seven Storieshave made that dissent visible in the United States. In the books final two chapters on the Robert F. Kennedy Centers Speak Truth to Power initiative and the publication of Marc Falkoffs Poems from Guantnamo, the author turns our attention further outward, probing the role poetry, theater, and photography play in global human rights work. Locating the work of artists and writers alongside that of scholars and legal advocates, Visible Dissent not only unveils the staying-power of committed writing, it honors the cross-currents and the on-the-ground implications of humane political engagement.