This book is concerned with the problem of reading and interpreting the Argentine literary magazine Sur, which was published regularly between 1931 and 1970, and irregularly thereafter, as an elegant fusion of fiction, poetry, philosophy, plastic arts, history and social commentary. That a magazine should be chosen as a research topic reflects the reality of Argentine literary life in the twentieth century. Such publications offered many writers their main opportunity to put forward ideas in the form of works of literature and critical or general essays. Most magazines only lasted for a few years or, in some cases, a few issues, but Sur, thanks to the quality of its contributors and the sound financial base of its founder, Victoria Ocampo, was to have an important influence on several generations.

There have been no substantial accounts written of literary magazines in Latin America, and few studies exist of their European and North American counterparts. There are signs that more attention is being focused on this area, but the research for this study, and in particular the methodological and theoretical issues that it raises, have evolved, to a large extent, in a critical vacuum. The lack of a coherent body of criticism imposes certain necessary limitations on the work. Francis Mulhern has argued in his recent study of the English critical magazine Scrutiny: