Introducing Latin American Literature Today
For the past decade, World Literature Today has been proud to collaborate with Beijing Normal University to bring out an annual Chinese edition of the magazine as well as a biannual journal, Chinese Literature Today. Beginning in 2017, we are excited to announce an important new addition to the University of Oklahoma editorial “family”: Latin American Literature Today, a fully bilingual, quarterly online publication that launched at noon today.
The editors of Latin American Literature Today aim to showcase “great writing on an international scale, with a particular focus on the vibrant, multifaceted literary production of modern Latin America.” Working with a wide network of collaborators throughout Latin America and the United States—led by Editor in Chief Marcelo Rioseco—LALT will publish both translated material from the pages of WLT and exclusive original content, with a special dossier devoted to Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia in its first issue.
The editors of LALT anticipate a vast potential readership for this bilingual publication. Demographically, 90 percent of the 500 million Spanish speakers in the world live in the Americas. Moreover, the United States will be the country with the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world by 2030. For the immediate future, as the United States’ political relations with Latin America threaten to unravel, it seems more important than ever to pay attention to what Spanish-language writers and public intellectuals have to tell us.
For nine decades, World Literature Today has given Latin American literature special prominence in its pages. As an affiliate of WLT, Latin American Literature Today represents a vital new extension of our mission to keep a finger on the pulse of contemporary international writing. We are proud to help sponsor this brilliant new undertaking and wish our colleagues every success in the years to come.
