Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture and Amherst College and the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Latino Literature Prize, the Antonia Pantoja Award, Chile's Presidential Medal, and the Ruben Dario Distinction.

Series Foreword by Ilan Stavans
Preface
I PANORAMAS
What Is This Thing Called Soap Opera?
Laura Stempel Mumford
The International Telenovela Debate and
the Contra-Flow Argument: A Reappraisal
Daniël Biltereyst and Philippe Meers
Telenovelas and Soap Operas: Negotiating Reality from the Periphery
Christina Slade
Romancing the Globe
Ibsen Martínez
Understanding Telenovelas as a Cultural Front: A Complex Analysis of a Complex Reality
Jorge González
Opening America?
The Telenovela-ization of U.S. Soap Operas
Denise D. Bielby and C. Lee Harrington
Engaging the Audience: The Social Imagery of the Novela
Reginald Clifford
II CASE STUDIES
Cultural Identity: Between Reality and Fiction:
A Transformation of Genre and Roles in Mexican Telenovelas
María de la Luz Casas Pérez
Fact or Fiction? Narrative and Reality in the Mexican Telenovela
Rosalind C. Pearson
Whose Life in the Mirror?
Examining Three Mexican Telenovelas as Cultural and Commercial Products
Laura J. Beard
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Editor and Contributors

Drama! Excess! Men in bee suits! Often erroneously compared to soap operas of the United States, outside of the necessary and sometimes fantastical dramatic story arc, however, the telenovela differs greatly from U.S. soap operas and have regional and cultural distinctions throughout Latin America. In Telenovelas, Ilan Stavans has gathered over two-dozen essays covering the telenovela for readers to better understand the phenomenon and its myriad layers.
Branching off from radionovelas, the telenovela was exported from pre-Castro Cuba during the 1950s. The essays found in Telenovelas covers a broad view of the genre, television's impact in Latino culture, as well as more in-depth discussions of specific telenovelas throughout the Spanish-speaking television audience in the North America. Also explored is how telenovelas depict stereotypes, respond to gender and class roles, and examines the differences in topic and thematic choices as well as production values unique to each country.