Seeking to revise the notion that "heterolingualism" should lead to literary-historical elision, Diaz underscores the ties that bind the works of these authors to the Spanish American literary canon. Through his close readings of texts by Merlin and Hudson, as well as Maria Luisa Bombal, G. Cabrera Infante and Carlos Fuentes, foreign tongues emerge as valid, if perplexing, tools of writing for Spanish Americans.