Yvon Grenier – författare

This book offers an analysis of Paz's political thought, arguing that it is rooted in two separate and often antagonistic traditions, Liberalism and Romanticism. Grenier shows that Paz's political thought is best approached not so much by looking at the specific positions Paz took in the issues of his day, but rather by uncovering the core values at the heart of Paz's political philosophy. From Art to Politics gives not only a better understanding of Paz's thought, but also a discussion of the political culture and democratization of Mexico. The book takes a novel look at issues such as the relations between art and politics, the role of intellectuals, and the penchant of academics for 'machination' theories in the area of art and culture. The result is an account of Paz's work that is both more focused and more ambitious than those offered in previous books on Paz's politics.

This book offers an analysis of Paz's political thought, arguing that it is rooted in two separate and often antagonistic traditions, Liberalism and Romanticism. Grenier shows that Paz's political thought is best approached not so much by looking at the specific positions Paz took in the issues of his day, but rather by uncovering the core values at the heart of Paz's political philosophy. From Art to Politics gives not only a better understanding of Paz's thought, but also a discussion of the political culture and democratization of Mexico. The book takes a novel look at issues such as the relations between art and politics, the role of intellectuals, and the penchant of academics for 'machination' theories in the area of art and culture. The result is an account of Paz's work that is both more focused and more ambitious than those offered in previous books on Paz's politics.

The product of a unique collaboration between a literary critic (Van Delden) and a political scientist (Grenier), this book looks at the relationship between literature and politics in Latin America, a region where these two domains exist in closer proximity than perhaps anywhere else in the Western world. The apparently seamless blending of literature and politics is reflected in the explicitly political content of much of the continent's writing, as well as in the highly visible political roles played by many Latin American intellectuals. Yet the authors of this book argue that the relationship between the two realms is much more complex and fraught with tension than is nowadays recognized. In examining these tensions, and in revealing the diverse ways in which literature and politics intersect in the Latin American cultural tradition, ""Gunshots at the Fiesta"" offers a lively challenge to the current tendency - especially strong in the U.S. academy - to read Latin American literature through a narrowly political prism. The authors argue that one can only understand the nature of the dialogue between literature and politics if one begins by recognizing the different logics that operate in these different domains. Using this idea of the different logics of politics and literature as a guiding thread, Van Delden and Grenier offer bold new readings of major authors such as Jose Marti, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as compelling interpretations of works by less-frequently-discussed figures such as Claribel Alegria, Marisol Martin del Campo, and Victor Hugo Rascon Banda.

The focus is placed on the period of emergence of insurgency (roughly, the 1970s and early 1980s), a period too often confounded (and not only in the Salvadoran case) with subsequent periods of the revolutionary cycle.