Héctor Hoyos takes on the ambitious task of tackling the relationship between globalization and the emergence of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño alongside the work of contemporary Brazilian, Mexican, and Argentine writers. Through an interrogation of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges's spatial construct of the “aleph,” defined as “a world in miniature” which contains “an infinitude of points of view,” Hoyos effectively shows how a variety of contexts, including the art world, Nazi histories, the supermarket, and the illegal drug trade, illuminate new connections between the national and the global (2). Hoyos states that his intention is “not to make Latin American criticism (and that of other regions) fall in step with world literature, but to model world literature after Latin Americanism,” thus turning away from a traditional centre-versus-periphery model (9, original emphasis). The starting point for his study of contemporary Latin American fiction is 1989, as it witnessed the end of the Pinochet regime and an intensification of conflict surrounding the drug trade in Colombia. Such cultural upheaval impacted on the aesthetic and political strategies used by contemporary Latin American writers as they defined their place in a global marketplace where the translation and dissemination of their works became easier to facilitate. The scope of Hoyos's study also encompasses the impact of the artist Marcel Duchamp upon the Argentine writer César Aira, thus illustrating how interdisciplinary connections enable contemporary Latin American writers to find innovative ways of reaching out to a global audience.

Following on from an initial discussion of how Roberto Bolaño deploys the concept of Nazism as a way of reflecting on authoritarianism within a global context, Hoyos makes an interesting link to the Brazilian Chico Buarque de Hollanda's novel Budapeste (2003). The novel tells the story of a Brazilian writer who emigrates to Hungary and returns to Rio many years later to find out that the young child he left behind has turned into a neo-Nazi. Hoyos presents a close analysis of the novel which explores the tensions which arise when a “quintessentially Brazilian” author “caters for a generic, global sensibility” (68). In contrast to an earlier trend of fiction which explored journeys from Europe to Latin America, Hoyos observes how Budapeste may be seen as part of an opposite trajectory which situates Latin America as the point from which to escape to Eastern Europe, thus reconfiguring the place of Latin America within a global context. Hoyos explores how Buarque's novel provides an ironic subversion of the chivalric romance myth in order to expose gendered power relationships and the concept of literary tourism as a form of escapism.

Another globalized space which is examined in an intriguing way by Hoyos is that of the supermarket. Through a comparative analysis of works by writers including the Chileans Diamela Eltit and Alberto Fuguet, Hoyos investigates how the physical location of the supermarket is used to expose class and racial inequalities and the impact of consumerism within an international context. These writers pose the question whether globalization is creating a world which is “richer in possibilities,” or whether it is an expanding supermarket “with more products and less humanity” (122).

Additionally, an important area that Hoyos tackles is the narconovela which arises out of the illegal drugs trade. In a discussion of the Mexican writer Homero Aridjis and the Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo, Hoyos examines the interconnection between religion, drug trafficking and conflict along the US–Mexico border. The analysis shows how contemporary fiction can both reinforce cultural stereotypes and question social hierarchies. Hoyos also cites the successful US TV show Breaking Bad as “an attempt by the American middle classes to finally own a problem they have created, in part, by disowning it” (155). Hoyos's critical view of the series could be problematized by a more sustained analysis of its aesthetic complexities, but he provides a valid conclusion that a full understanding of the illegal drug world will not be achieved until governmental efforts become more focussed on treating the underlying causes of the problem, rather than on heavy-handed methods of policing.

Overall, then, Hoyos provides fresh insights into the relationship between contemporary Latin American literature and globalization. His study should be of interest to specialists in Latin American fiction, but it also has a broader appeal which is relevant to the disciplines of world literature and American studies.