FOUNDATIONAL NARRATIVES OF LATIN AMERICA Telling a tale to know oneself. Telling a tale to understand oneself. Telling a tale to get one’s bearings. Midway through the 20th century, Pedro Enríquez Ureña and Angel Álvarez de Miranda reflected and took stock of the way in which Latin America had attempted all of that through literature. The foundational stories of the 19th century were made up sometimes of the dreams of a visionary, at others the pipe dreams of populist warlords. 20th century stories, meanwhile, tended to skip from ideas for the construction of a country on certain real foundations to laments at the oppression and exploitation of a people condemned to under-development. The themes have again changed in the 21st century, making way for globalization, cosmopolitanism, cross-cultural exchange, the marginalization of the African population, industrial development and the like.