La Línea / The Line

About the Book

One of the foundational volumes of the Binational Press / Editorial Binacional experiment, La Línea / The Line collects studies by U.S. and Mexican scholars on border literature at a moment when the field was still establishing its critical vocabulary. The essays approach writing from the border through sociological, formal, historical, and theoretical lenses, asking how literature changes when the line between nations is understood as a cultural zone rather than only as a geopolitical boundary.

The volume was built bilingually: each essay appears in both English and Spanish, and the editors prepared separate introductions in the two languages, likewise translated. That architecture is central to the book’s argument. Translation is not supplementary but structural, making readers cross repeatedly between critical traditions and national frames. Early criticism from the collection—including Harry Polkinhorn’s work toward a theory of border writing—helped articulate ideas that would become increasingly important in borderlands literary studies.