ABSTRACT
According to The Laws of the Indies (1573), the colonizers of the New World should start by founding a plaza. Taking this as its point of departure, Chapter 16 traces the central role of the plaza in Latin American literature – in Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas, Legends of Guatemala and The President by Miguel Angel Asturias, The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier, E. Luminata by Diamela Eltit, and in essays by Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes. As it turns out, the plaza is a contested space reflecting the conflict between colonizer and colonized, between dictator and subjects, but also a space supportive of identity formation.
