Ann B. Gonzalez

Biography

Ann González, originally from North Carolina, earned a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of South Carolina. She spent eight years teaching English and American literature at the University of Costa Rica (1980-88) before returning to the United States. Currently, she is Chair of the Department of Languages and Culture Studies and Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, where she has taught since 1990. Her research interests include Latin American narrative, Hispanic children’s literature, literary translation, and postcolonial theory. Her first book Si pero no: Fabián Dobles and the Post-Colonial Challenge (Fairleigh Dickenson Press, 2005) analyzes the literary production of Costa Rican award winning novelist (also her husband’s uncle) Fabián Dobles from a postcolonial perspective. Her second book Resistance and Survival: Children’s Narrative from Central America and the Caribbean (University of Arizona Press, 2009), winner of Choice Magazine’s 2010 designation of Outstanding Academic Title, studies children’s literature from the region within a postcolonial context. This book was followed by a textbook on Hispanic children’s literature, Colorín Colorado: Introducción a la literatura infantil y juvenil (Panda Press, 2014), designed for Intermediate level Spanish speakers to introduce them to the classics of children’s literature from Spain and Spanish America. Most recently, she published a broader study of children’s literature, Postcolonial Approaches to Latin American Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2018), which looks at well-known examples of children’s literature throughout the continent. She is particularly interested in how constructions of national and regional identity as well as narratives of history and socio-economic stratification are passed down from one generation to the next. Her next project is to edit a collection of academic articles on the unique features of literature for children from the Spanish-speaking world.

Education

PH.D. 1983 University of South Carolina

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Latin American narrative, Hispanic children’s literature, literary translation, and postcolonial theory. I am particularly interested in the intersection of literary translating and literary theory.

Books