"Las relacione inmediatamente con la literatura"

This study explores the ways in which Science Fiction is not a genre but a writing practice in Latin America. Although science fiction may be perceived as a genre "out of place" in the region, a careful analysis reveals that it has fundamental affinities with central currents in Latin American literature and culture at large. Historical allegory is used to appropriate tropes, topoi and conventions that may seem closely connected to that scientific-technological modernity in which Latin America, so it is said, only partly participates. A reading of science fiction from Latin America, however, reveals that the general understanding of science fiction needs to be changed. It is neither an exploration of modern technological society, nor a prophetic extrapolation of the present into the future. It is, rather, a complex writing and reading practice in which one can see the articulation of shock, the unexpected and wonder, on the one hand, and the megatext of the general science fiction library, on the other. This way, science fiction can be related to general currents in Latin American literature, such as the fantastic as practiced by Borges and Cortázar, lo real maravilloso, and magical realism. After establishing a new model for science fiction in general, this study moves to the detailed analysis of the works of such important authors in the field of science fiction as Angélica Gorodischer, Carlos Gardini, Pepe Rojo and Hugo Hiriart.