There has been a spate of re-evaluations of the Spanish-American literary canon published recently (notably the Cambridge History of Latin American Literature [1996], the Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature [1997]) but more work clearly needs to be done on the ways in which the parameters of literary culture have changed in the modern era. This article looks in detail at the main trends, which include the exponential growth in the printing industry, the professionalization of the literary writer and the literary critic, the institutionalization of literary competitions and prizes, the growth and radicalization of the literary canon, and, finally, the new symbiosis of the literary and cinematic cultures.