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Pelican Latin American Library

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The Pelican Latin American Library (PLAL) was a specialist series of books published by Penguin Books UK in the 1970s. The series was inaugurated in the wake of the success of another Penguin imprint, the Penguin African Library. The general editor of the series was Richard Gott, the longtime Latin America correspondent of the Guardian.[1]

The series took off at a time when Latin American politics was buffeted by numerous challenges such as military dictatorship, American hegemony, widespread poverty, and guerrilla uprisings often inspired by Marxist liberation theology. The first book in the series was Carlos Marighela's For the Liberation of Brazil, translated by John Butt and Rosemary Sheed. Other titles published in the series were:

Due to the perception of leftist bias in the series, there was friction with the corporate owner Pearson Longman and the imprint was eventually ceased.[2]

References

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  1. ^ Essay by ALISTAIR McCLEERY, Edinburgh Napier University
  2. ^ 'The Pelican Latin American Library' by Mike Davis, The Penguin Collector 81, December 2013