Las Vegas in American Literature: Myth, Fiction, and Reality
The present lecture aims to explore the role of Las Vegas, the myth of neon, in US Literature, paying particular attention to the interaction between fiction and reality in contemporary literary portraits of this city. It is argued that fictional representations of Las Vegas have too often focused more on the myth of this city, with an overemphasis on the sin and vice elements traditionally associated with this place, than on the true nature of the so-called postmodern capital of the New American West. It is also shown that in the present century several relevant local authors have begun to challenge the vice image of Las Vegas popularized by temporary visitors, vindicating a more complex and heterogeneous literary approach to a city often regarded as the Entertainment Capital of the World.
Bionote
David Río Raigadas is Professor of American Literature at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) in Vitoria-Gasteiz. His research interests include diaspora studies, regional literatures, and especially Western American writing and Basque-American literature. He is the author of Robert Laxalt: The Voice of the Basques in American Literature (Center for Basque Studies P., 2007) and New Literary Portraits of the American West: Contemporary Nevada Fiction (Peter Lang, 2014). He has co-edited several volumes of essays, including The Western in the Global Literary Imagination (Brill, 2022) and Remembering Robert Laxalt (Center for Basque Studies P., 2026). He has also edited La expansión y revisión de un mito: el Oeste norteamericano en la literatura española (Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 2023). David Río co-coordinates an international research group (REWEST) specialized in the literature and culture of the American West.