This critical interdisciplinary volume investigates modern and contemporary Asian cultural products in the non-westernized transpacific context of Asian and Latin American intellectual and cultural connections. It focuses on the Latin American intellectual, literary, and cultural influences on Asia, which have long been overshadowed by the dominance of Europe/North America-oriented discourse and by the predominance of academic research by both Asian and western intellectuals that focuses only on the West. Moving beyond the western intellectual paradigm, the volume examines how Asian literature, films, and art interact with Latin American literature and ideas to reexamine, reconsider, and re-explore issues related to the two regions' historical traumas, cultural identities, indigenous/vernacular traditions, and peripheral global-ness. The volume argues that Asian and Latin American literary and cultural endeavors are part of these regions' broader efforts to search for the forms of modernity that best fit their unique sociohistorical and sociocultural conditions. 

“Transpacific Literary and Cultural Connections: Latin American Influence in Asia, Lu and Camps offer a refreshing compilation of research about the overlooked influence of Latin American literature and culture in Asia … the volume favors the more realistic cultural exchanges, especially in literary and audiovisual cultural products.” (Moisés Park, Hispania, Vol. 105 (1), March, 2022)

Jie Lu is Professor of Chinese Studies & Film Studies at the University of the Pacific, USA.

Martin Camps is Professor of Spanish at the University of the Pacific, USA.