Edward King , Virtual Orientalism in Brazilian Culture (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. x + 214, £60.00, hb.

Abstract

O Oriental Religions in Latin American Literature Ignacio Lo´pez-Calvo School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of California, Merced, Merced CA, USA Keywords Eastern religions; Latin American Literature; Buddhism; Shinto; Confucianism; Taoism; Hin- duism; Theosophy; Chinese religions; Oriental- ism; Vicente Fatone; Alejandro Korn; Pablo Neruda; Octavio Paz; Jorge Luis Borges; Julio Cortazar; Ce´sar Aira; Juan Jose´ Tablada; Augusto Higa; Enrique Go´mez Carrillo; Bernardo Carvalho; Severo Sarduy; Zoe´ Valde´s; Antonio Chuffat Latour. Regino Pedroso; Mayra Montero; Leonardo Padura Fuentes; Rube´n Dari´o; Leopoldo Lugones; Amado Nervo; Gabriela Mistral; Ricardo Rojas; Arturo Capdevila; Ricardo Guiraldes Part of the information included in this essay was taken from my books Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Writing Tusan in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2014); The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2013); and Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (UP of Florida, 2008). Definition Theosophy and eastern religions and creeds such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and Taoism have influenced Latin American lit- erature since the Modernistas. Canonical authors such as Neruda, Borges, Cortazar, Paz, and Sarduy have addressed these eastern beliefs in different ways. While for the Modernista they were an escapist tool and Neruda openly rejects them, other authors such as Tablada and Paz resort to them to try to understand their own countries or to find the keys of eroticism (the case of Paz and Sarduy). In turn, for Borges, eastern religions are a metaphor for infinite time, fantasy, and utopia and for Sarduy a path to personal enlightenment. Introduction Given the wealth of authors and works, the topic of the presence of Eastern religions in Latin American literature would be more appropriate for a book than for a short essay. In any case, in the next pages I will summarize what has already been studied and will suggest the analysis of other Latin American works whose dialogue with east- ern religions has not been studied in so much depth yet indicating, whenever possible, the rea- sons for the authors’ attraction to or rejection of these creeds. # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 H. P. P. Gooren (ed.), Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_159-1