From Griffin to Axolotl: Reimagining the Bestiary in Contemporary Hispanic Literature (McGill-Queen's Iberian and Latin American Cultures Series) - Softcover

Ailén Cruz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0228026318 ISBN 13: 9780228026310

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2025

Synopsis

The fox is cunning, the lion is brave. These familiar ideas span back to the medieval bestiary – short, animal-centred texts, often illustrated, used to disseminate Christian teachings in medieval society. Translated into dozens of languages, bestiaries were wildly popular until the twelfth century. After centuries of obscurity, six of Latin America's most prominent writers – Juan José Arreola, Jorge Luis Borges, Nicolás Guillén, Augusto Monterroso, Pablo Neruda, and José Emilio Pacheco – took up the bestiary during the experimental Latin American avant-garde and Boom periods. From Griffin to Axolotl presents the bestiary as a distinct genre within Hispanic literature, examining its resurgence in the contemporary canon. Analyzing a corpus of over eighty bestiaries collected through field research in Canada, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain, Ailén Cruz explores the evolutions of the genre. Reimagined through both prose and art, and moving beyond religious teachings, these bestiaries range from the rebellious to the nonsensical, touching on a spectrum of topics – from preservation of Indigenous Latin American cultures to environmental crises and the human condition. From Griffin to Axolotl promotes an understudied genre of Hispanic literature, demonstrating that the bestiary is not extinct, but has been remoulded for modern society.

About this title

About the Author

Ailén Cruz is a post-doctoral researcher at Mount Allison University and writes the bilingual Substack Prone to Hyperbole.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228026318
• ISBN 13: 9780228026310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228