Ascent to Glory

Ascent to Glory is an original and important book. It's very well written, theoretically complex, and advances a compelling explanation of the processes through which Cien Años de Soledad achieved the status of a classic. Alvaro Santana Acuña is going to be a well-known and respected scholar in cultural sociology for years to come. -- Claudio E. Benzecry, author of The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an Obsession
Gabriel García Márquez had a gift for friendship, and in Ascent to Glory Álvaro Santana-Acuña reveals the circle of friends and collaborators who helped bring One Hundred Years of Solitude into print, and he exposes the broader network of readers, reviewers, and agents of different kinds who made it one of the most beloved novels of the 20th century. García Márquez had a gift for storytelling and a gift for friendship, and Ascent to Glory is a revealing study of what can be achieved when the two come together. -- Stephen Enniss, Director of the Harry Ransom Center
In this work of love and true scholarship, Santana-Acuña opens new vistas for how to make sense of world literature today. In beautifully crafted prose, his meticulous analysis delights and enlightens about how it happens that creative work first gets legs and goes on to take new life and meaning again and again, for different people across many contexts and times. Academics and the general public alike will emerge from Ascent to Glory with a sense of satisfaction and improved understanding. I recommend it to all those who appreciate global works of art, literary or otherwise, or literature tout court. -- Michèle Lamont, past president of the American Sociological Association
García Márquez’s novel used the writer's own past to imagine, between the lines, a better future. As one of those sociologists who is a 'historian of the present,' Álvaro Santana-Acuña has reflected the Colombian writer's singular achievement. I believe his readers will be inspired to use this book, which is full of new ideas, to think more lucidly about the unusually challenging future that now lies before us, both in literature and in life. -- Gerald Martin, author of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life
I have been waiting for this book. One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most influential novel of the last fifty years, but how did that happen? Álvaro Santana-Acuña’s extraordinary feat is to lay bare the mechanisms through which a great work of fiction becomes a whole culture. He has probably given us the definitive account of that miracle. -- Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Shape of the Ruins: A Novel
Ascent to Glory is essential reading for anyone interested in Latin American literature in general and the life and work of Gabriel García Márquez in particular, but should also be of interest to anyone interested in culture and its workings (including star- and 'classic'-making). * Complete Review *
Placing García Márquez so carefully among the nuanced forces of Latin American literature, however, makes this an essential book for readers of Cien Años and a rewarding one for anyone interested in the globalization of world literature. * World Literature Today *
The book constitutes an enjoyable narrative that can be read by specialists and non-specialists alike. * Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change *
An essential work for admirers of One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as for those interested in examining the mechanisms of a text acquiring a global identity. * Telegraph India *
An intelligent, appealing, instructive book. * St. Orberose *
This is a book for those interested in the sociology of literature, Latin American literature in particular. Recommended. * Choice *
The book is well founded and attention grabbing, while its most important contribution is probably its perspective on cultural value and the classic: it emphasizes the social story which makes the artwork an integral part of people’s lives, accommodating both the creative act and the role of a multifaceted process of cultural brokerage. * Cultural Sociology *
If Santana-Acuña’s book is a love letter to One Hundred Years of Solitude and its fans, it’s also a love letter to those wizened enough to resist sanding off the jagged edges of history. * Public Books *
Ascent to Glory is that rarest of things, a readable and enjoyable scholarly book. * ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America *
A compelling alternative critical approach to the study of literary classics in general. * Latino Book Review *
Stimulating, very informative, beautiful book! * Al Femminile *
Santana-Acuña unpacks how One Hundred Years of Solitude became a classic by arguing against the myth of the author as a 'solitary genius.' * Latin American Literature Today *
It is refreshing to read a book such as Santana-Acuña’s, which attempts a new take on [García Márquez's] classic, and indeed on classics in general. * Modern Language Notes *
Ascent to Glory is a work of unusual lucidity and depth. * Hispania *
Álvaro Santana-Acuña’s book is an excellent achievement, standing as a testimony to his exhaustive primary archival research. His writing is clear and accurate, and he manages to convey his infectious passion for his subject in concise terms, which are easily grasped by those outside of the academic sphere. * European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology *
A tour de force....a major empirical contribution to the sociology of culture. * American Journal of Sociology *
Ascent to Glory is the result of extensive, dedicated, and patient research, and through it Santana-Acuña weaves together sources, discourses, and disciplines to tell a macro-level story about the creation of a work and its realization, dissemination, and continued presence in the world. * Latin American Research Review *