While recent scholarship in the Latinx nineteenth century has emphasized the print culture processes informing Spanish-language textual production, the field has also been energized by a focus on prominent authors. This article traces the tension between emphasizing a representative subject (author) versus the way print culture provides insight into lived experiences in sociopolitical contexts. The piece turns to debates over the novel Jicotencal and the attraction of Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton and José Marti as representative figures to trace scholarly developments over the last two decades. Looking toward future directions, the chapter envisions ongoing attention to archival holdings and intersections with critical projects such as queer and Indigenous studies. The last section emphasizes the importance of translation for research in the Latinx nineteenth century.

Mary Pat Brady’s chapter poses an alternative approach to hemispheric fiction by reading not according the scales of concentric geometries of space (local, regional, national, transnational), but instead reconceptualizing what she terms “pluriversal novels of the 21st century.” She argues for attending to the complexly mixed temporalities, perspectives, and languages of novels that reject the dualism of monoworlds (center/periphery) for the unpredictability of stories anchored in multiple space-times. While this is not an exclusively 21st-century phenomenon, she shows that pluriveral fiction has flourished recently, as works by Linda Hogan, Jennine Capó Crucet, Julia Alvarez, Gabby Rivera, Karen Tei Yamashita, Ana-Maurine Lara, and Evelina Zuni Lucero demonstrate.