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Ángel Rama’s posthumously published La ciudad letrada, first printed in 1984, aims to transcend local narratives of the history and literature of Latin America by providing a global consideration of the history of cities and intellectuals throughout the region, from the Spanish conquest to the 20th century. At the book’s core is the changing relationship between the lettered individuals that give the book its title and the ever-changing power structures American cities. Its historical study of the production and dissemination of meaning in urban spaces, focusing on the class of individuals whose ability to read and write placed them at the center of these processes, places it in the larger academic tradition of cultural studies. In this case, the written word is the medium essential to the survival of the lettered class, and the author shows how its control of written discourse influenced the development of Latin American nations and their urban centers.

Beginning with a description of American cities as reasoned applications of early modern European ideas concerning urban planning and the ordered distribution of space, Rama discusses the rise of a lettered bureaucracy (the lettered city that gives the book its title) essential to the maintenance of an empire half a world away from its European center. He then traces this group’s development in relation to the real city. The lettered city, an absolute necessity in the administration of colonial empires centered half a world away from their European centers, was compelled to join forces with the creole elites of the newly independent nations of Latin America. It was no longer a sort of secular priesthood charged with transmitting the Word of the distant State, and its members were forced to adapt and integrate themselves into the process of creating national identities and creating civic consciousness through education and cultural output. Later, as cities modernized and power was consolidated in the hands of political parties, the lettered class continued to evolve and maintain its influence by using writing as a way to continually represent the city, incorporating marginalized and popular forms into works that show urban life as a conjunction of a nostalgic past and a rapidly changing present. As its professional role shifted from bureaucratic to journalistic posts, this lettered elite also produced works that recorded nationalist and regional discourses on progress and education and provided written foundations for the political power structure of the real city.

To this reader, the book’s strength lies in its wide scope. Rama’s history of readers and writers inscribes their literary and professional production in the greater history of the region and its cities. As he tells the story of the possessors of the written word, Rama charts the changing role of writing in society, telling the history of the social class that held the power of the pen. I believe this type of big, broad, compelling narrative would appeal to all those interested in Latin America and its political, social and literary history. ( )