The Latin American Urban Crónica explores the fluid relationship between high and low culture in Latin America. Paying attention to the peculiar development of the cultural fields in Latin America and to the consequences of present processes of globalization, Esperança Bielsa examines the contemporary cr-nica in Mexico City and Guayaquil and its role in representing unofficial culture in its widest sense. This unique work is the product of the study of numerous texts and interviews with the main writers of crónica and also incorporates extensive research on reception. Essentially interdisciplinary in its approach, The Latin American Urban Crónica is one of the very few publications about this fascinating and understudied mixed genre of the area between journalism and literature, and the first to systematically situate the Latin American cr-nica within social and cultural theory.

"The text is an exceptional tool for any reader, providing a wealth of information for the non-specialist, and a sound review and analysis of chronicles and chronicle readership for the literary critic. Bielsa carries out a fine exploration of the urban crónica in seven chapters, which range from the high and low culture debates to individual analyses of crónicas appearing in the press of contemporary Guayaquil and Mexico City, and which conclude with a discussion of how crónica readership is distinguished today." - H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online