Forms of Dictatorship
Power, Narrative, and Authoritarianism in the Latina/o Novel
Jennifer Harford Vargas
Reviews and Awards
Winner of the 2019 Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association Outstanding Book Award
"Forms of Dictatorship is not only a worthwhile but also a highly relevant undertaking which pays attention to how literary works created by Latina/o writers living in the United States use the trope of dictatorship to discuss the current sociopoliti-cal landscape of the United States." - Angelika Köhler, Amerikastudien
"Forms of Dictatorship shows the critical payoffs that the careful analysis of content and form provides for Latinx literary studies. The book speaks to many contemporary issues, such as Central American migration, state-sanctioned violence against Afrodiasporic, Latinx, and indigenous people, and technologies of surveillance. Harford Vargas provides a blueprint for future scholars looking to apply a comparative American and trans-American framework to Latinx and Latin American studies." - Regina Marie Mills, Studies in the Novel
"Forms of Dictatorship makes a strong case for why and how Latina/o and Latin American studies can be productively brought into conversation. Harford Vargas takes seriously how the form of the novel, anti-colonial imaginaries, and questions of racial, class, gender, and sexual justice are represented on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border and beyond. The book offers a model for taking seriously the hemispheric connections between Latina/o studies and Latin American Studies." - David Vázquez, University of Oregon
"Elegantly written, with a series of striking analyses, Forms of Dictatorship draws together Latin American critical history of the dictatorship novel and US Latino/a novels about authoritarian regimes. Vargas' attention to formal innovation, combined with her breadth of knowledge of the literature of the Américas, makes Forms of Dictatorship a crucial contribution to the study of contemporary literature." - Mary Pat Brady, Cornell
