I can't believe it's not nature: Ecology and environmentalism in recent Spanish American fiction (Luis Sepulveda, Chile, Mempo Giardinelli, Argentina, Arturo Arias, Guatemala, Gioconda Belli, Nicaragua, Homero Aridjis, Mexico)

I analyze a trend in Spanish American novels that features environmentalist and ecological concerns comprised of the following texts: Un viejo que lea novelas de amor (1993) (An Old Man who Read Love Stories), Mundo del fin del mundo (1994) (T he World at the End of the World), Patagonia Express (1995), and Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar (1996) (The Story of a Seagull and of the Cat that Taught it to Fly) by Chilean Luis Sepúlveda; Imposible equilibrio (1995) (Impossible Equilibrium) by Argentine Mempo Giardinelli; Los caminos de Paxil (1990) The Paths to Paxil) by Guatemalan Arturo Arias; Waslala (1998) by Nicaraguan Gioconda Belli; and La leyenda de los soles (1993) (Legend of the Suns) and ¿En quién piensas cuando haces el amor? (1995) (Who Do You Think of When You Make Love?) by Mexican Homero Aridjis.; The approach to these novels ultimately hinges upon two things. First, there is the matter of the ethical work that can be done at the perceptual and imaginative level: images of nature and environmentalism in film, poetry, and literature play a fundamental role in the cultural formation of ecological values and in social decisions about environmental behavior. The second element of my approach rests upon the recognition that the experience of environmental degradation, where the most obvious literary manifestation is the explicit incorporation of the environmentalist discourse itself, will in turn affect formal aspects of literature like form, structure, language, and genre.; I find that the texts themselves actually incorporate an ethical discourse with respect to the environment; that is, they contribute to efforts at conservation, the quest for ecological justice, and resistance to ecologically destructive activity by offering literary representations that dramatize the need to do such things. I also find that the concerns of ecology and environmentalism can produce uncommon literary texts that contain a peculiar language and unexpected structures, and that expand the limits of genre. Finally, I find that these two elements often overlap such that ecological concerns imply new literary forms and these forms can express such concerns in unique ways.