Books Published

Writing the Apocalypse: Historical Vision in Contemporary U.S. and Latin American Fiction. Cambridge University Press, 1989. In Spanish translation: Narrar el apocalipsis. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1994.

This is comparative literary study of apocalyptic themes and narrative techniques in the contemporary North American and Latin American novel. Lois Zamora explores the history of the myth of apocalypse, from the bible to medieval and later interpretations, and relates this to the development of American apocalyptic attitudes. She demonstrates that the symbolic tensions inherent in the apocalyptic myth have had special meaning for postmodern writers. Zamora focuses on the relation between temporal ends and narrative endings in the works of six major novelists: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Thomas Pynchon, Julio Cortazar, John Barth, Walker Percy, and Carlos Fuentes.

Distinguished by its comparative perspective, this book takes up the question of apocalypse as a matter of intellectual and literary history. Zamora's analysis of the apocalyptic tradition will enlighten scholars of Latin American and American literature and readers of contemporary fiction.