The literature of Latin America has always defied homogeneity—and the first decades of the 20th century were no exception. This program studies artistic responses to Modernismo that accompanied a deepening appreciation of local cultural currents forming across the region—currents that, however disparate, were flowing into a shared identity. The forces that paved the way for a new avant-garde, replacing traditional means of discourse with a fractured and anxiety-ridden worldview, are analyzed. The concept of novelas de la tierra or “novels of the land” is addressed, as are the writings of Alcides Arguedas, Horacio Quiroga, José Eustasio Rivera, Rómulo Gallegos, Martín Luis Guzmán, Gregorio López Fuentes, Rafael Muñoz, Nelly Campobello, and numerous others. An FFH&S/Tranquilo Production. (46 minutes)