SPAN 327 | The Pandemic Novel in Contemporary Latin America

Pandemics have long held a prominent place in the historical memory and cultural life of Latin America, from smallpox, to malaria, to (love in the time of) cholera, to HIV/AIDS. In the twenty-first century, well before the lockdowns and social distancing occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19, some of Latin America¿s most prominent authors wrote viral (in all senses) novels that imagined the impacts of the outbreak of new diseases. As with other forms of speculative fiction, these pandemic novels serve as laboratories to explore questions such as our ethical obligations to one another, the limits of state power, the environmental impacts of an interconnected global economy, and how questions of gender, race, and socioeconomic status produce divergent experiences and outcomes in times of crisis.