Boyd (emeritus, Latin American literature, Temple U.) presents four separate essays, the first three of which are thematically unified by exploring how the descendents of Africans in Latin America have been incorporated into Latino literary culture as symbols of national identity, but separately focus on aesthetic blackness in creative literature, the aesthetics of language as an experience of the Afro-Latin/Afro-Hispanic reality, and the specific case of race in the aesthetics of Dominican writers Julia Alvarez and Lolida Maritza Přez. The fourth essay shifts the focus to experiences of identity among Afro-Brazilians who have resettled in Ghana Annotation 2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
