Mexico has always been seen as a separate culture, but without a distinctly separate language, the United States and Canada are often lumped together culturally. Yet all three of the political entities that presently occupy the place we call North America are distinctly different cultures with their own individual literatures.

To demonstrate, Merilyn Simonds examines a contemporary novel from each country:

• YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES by Álvaro Enrigue, a surrealist novel that illuminates Mexico’s obsession with the conquest through a reversed reimagining
• JAMES by Percival Everett, a retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — an iconic American picaresque — from the perspective of Jim, the fugitive slave
• THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD by Margaret Atwood, a satirical exploration of environmentalism and the ethical interface of nature and humankind.

Merilyn Simonds examines a contemporary novel from each country explores how these three novels reflect their distinct cultures and how their stories reverberate back to iconic novels centered around these pervasive national themes: PEDRO PARAMO by Juan Rulfo (Mexico), THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow (USA) and THE LAST OF THE CURLEWS by Fred Bodsworth (Canada) — all still in print 70 years after their publication.