The Many Voices of the Los Angeles Novel

As this volume shows, Los Angeles novels changed greatly beginning in the 1960s as the population of the city became multi-national. For decades, Latino/as have written critical novels of resistance about LA, and, in the 1970s, their novels came of age while influenced by South American magical realism. The book also highlights that African-Americans and Asian-Americans have authored brilliant Los Angeles fiction for a number of years, while women transformed novels dealing with Hollywood, detectives, and science fiction. In addition, LGBTQ writers—both Anglos and Chicano/as—have created innovative works, while men’s novels that explored 20th century class conflicts have been recently rediscovered.