"Marie Vautier's emphasis on de-constructing, de-centring, de-stabilizing, and especially de-mythologizing illustrates how New World myth narrators question the past in the present and carry out their original investigations of myth, place, and identity. Underlining the fact that political realities are encoded in the language and narrative of the six works she examines, Vautier argues that the reworkings of literary, religious, and historical myths and political ideologies in these novels are grounded in their shared situation of being in and of the New World."--BOOK JACKET.