This chapter offers an assessment of the challenges that interactive forms of digital literature pose to print-based assumptions about narrative. The assertions of critics such as Espen Aarseth, Janet Murray, and Bolter and Landow – that the interactivity of digital texts invalidates such core assumptions as the distinction between fabula and syuzhet as well as author, reader, and character – have tended to lose their force as the genres they regarded as transformative – hypertext fiction and text-based interactive fiction (IF) – have receded from public view. Yet, as Emily Short argues here, these genres are far from “dead.” Speaking from her perspective as one of contemporary literature’s most highly regarded authors of interactive and choice-based literature, Short shows that interactive fiction has not disappeared, but rather become so thoroughly ingrained in contemporary artistic practice as to become nearly invisible – not only in hypertextual forms like the popular videogames authored in the Twine platform, but also in contemporary print-based literary fiction. In thus penetrating the mainstream of literary production, both digital and analog, interactive forms have subtly but powerfully revised our core assumptions about literary narrative.

This chapter critically examines Latin American digital literature. First, it deals with the definition and main traits of electronic literature, arguing that electronic literature represents not just the emergence of a new modality that can be confined to a corner or “niche” of literature, but, on the contrary, an interrogation of the ontology of literature. Second, it discusses the specificity of Latin American digital writing. While some scholars claim that electronic literature is essentially a global phenomenon detached from the location where it is produced, others argue that “locatedness” is fundamental. The adjective “Latin American” should be understood as describing the dialogues that these works establish with central Latin American issues and concerns as well as their engagement with a cultural tradition that is considered as belonging/specific to the region. After presenting a brief genealogy of electronic literature in Latin America, the final part of the chapter analyzes four digital works that can be considered as canonical, or at least representative of a plurality of forms that characterizes electronic literature: Gabriella Infinita by Colombian author Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez; Grita by the Peruvian poet José Aburto; The IP Poetry Project by Argentinean artist Gustavo Romano; and The 27th/El 27 by the Mexican artist Eugenio Tisselli.