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This course examines how 20th-century Latin American fiction represented predominantly rural societies, not only as sites of 'tradition' (as is frequently assumed by extant criticism), but as active sites of transition and change in their own right. Focusing on key authors such as Juan Rulfo, José María Arguedas, Rosario Castellanos and José Donoso, among others, we will ask how fiction, particularly the novel, represented far-reaching rural transitions in the 20th century, ranging from agrarian revolution and land reform to the massive relocation of immiserated peasants to burgeoning cities. Along these lines, we will ask 1) how fiction imagined the rural not simply as static, but as a site of violent and often unpredictable change; and 2) which special insights aesthetic form might provide as a means of capturing that change. In similar fashion, we will ask how Latin America's 'agrarian fictions' might enrich our understanding of literary currents such as regionalism, indigenismo and the "Boom," but also the history of capitalism in the region.