"The Ends of Literature analyzes the part played by literature within contemporary Latin American thought and politics, above all, the politics of neoliberalism. The "why?" of contemporary Latin American literature is the book's over-arching concern. Its wide range includes close readings of the prose of Cortázar, Carpentier, Paz, Valenzuela, Piglia, and Las Casas, of the relationship of the "Boom" movement and its aftermath, of testimonial narrative, and of contemporary Chilean and Chicano film. The work also investigates in detail various theoretical projects as they intersect with and emerge from Latin American scholarship: cultural studies, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial studies." This book focuses on the era of the Boom, where García Márquez and Julio Cortázar are prominent.