Key topics: Jorge Luis Borges, 'Borges y yo' — prose poem, the divided self, authorship and identity, metafiction (added in most recent CED revision), Jorge Luis Borges, 'El Sur' — Borgesian ambiguity, the labyrinth of narrative, dream vs. reality, Argentine identity, Julio Cortázar, 'La noche boca arriba' — neofantástico, the uncanny, parallel temporal realities, Aztec sacrifice, Carlos Fuentes, 'Chac Mool' — Mexican identity, pre-Columbian mythology erupting into modernity, the fantastic, Gabriel García Márquez, 'El ahogado más hermoso del mundo' — magical realism, community transformation, mythological narrative, Gabriel García Márquez, 'La siesta del martes' — elliptical realism, silence and omission as narrative technique, dignity in grief, Isabel Allende, 'Dos palabras' — the power of language, oral storytelling, female agency and authorship within Boom conventions, Juan Rulfo, 'No oyes ladrar los perros' — rural Mexico, minimalist style, father-son conflict, moral ambiguity, Magical realism: the matter-of-fact narration of extraordinary events within a social-realist framework, El Boom as a publishing and aesthetic phenomenon: the international reception of Latin American fiction in the 1960s–70s.
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