Reading and writing the Latin American landscape / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes and Jerry Hoeg.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- To discover, an intransitive verb: Christopher Columbus's first encounter with the American landscape / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Is there such a thing as too much water? the hurricanes that foundered and the swamps that hindered Alvar Núnez Cabeza de Vaca / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Picaresque nature: conquistadors, parrots, parasites, mimics / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Andrés Bello's "Ode to tropical agriculture": the landscape of independence / Jerry Hoeg -- "I do not weep for Camaguey": Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's nineteenth-century Cuban landscape / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Rebellion in the backlands (Os Sertões) : the Darwinian landscape / Jerry Hoeg -- Yuyos are not weeds : an ecocritical approach to Horacio Quiroga / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- The landscapes of Venezuela: Doña Bárbara / Jerry Hoeg -- "It didn't work, mother. You should have let me stay here." Alegría's and Flakoll's Ashes of Izalco / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Pablo Neruda's Latin American landscape: nations, economy, nature / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- Love in the time of Somoza: Gioconda Belli's ambivalent ecofeminism / Beatriz Rivera-Barnes -- The landscape of the consumer society: Fernando Contreras Castro's Unica mirando al mar / Jerry Hoeg.