The short story has held a prominent place in Latin American literature for at least 200 years, but it is only within the past few decades that it has become widely known in translation. The course will use the short story as a vehicle to introduce some of Latin America’s best-known writers, including Nobel Laureates Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), as well as Jorge.Luis Borges (Argentina) and Isabel Allende (Chile and the U.S.). The course will draw on their short stories and those of a few younger writers, including outstanding U.S. Latino and Latina writers. It will focus on the cultural, artistic, social, and political dimensions of a wide variety of this fascinating literary form.