Esther Whitfield's current research focuses on war metaphors in Latin American political speech, literature and the arts. She has also worked extensively on Cuban culture of the post-Soviet period and on Welsh writing in the Americas.
Esther Whitfield's first book, _Cuban Currency: The Dollar and 'Special Period' Fiction_ (University of Minnesota Press, 2008), explores how the emergence of export markets for Cuban culture is inscribed in contemporary fiction. Based on extensive interviews and archival research in Havana, it takes an integrated approach to the cultural, economic and social changes that have taken place there since the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, from which Cuba derived most of its economic support. It argues that, over the past decade, writers have both challenged and profited from new transnational markets for their work, in a move whose literary and ideological implications are far-reaching.
Whitfield is also co-editor, with Anke Birkenmaier, of _Havana Beyond the Ruins_ (Duke University Press, 2011), a collection of essays on post-1989 Havana; and, with Jacqueline Loss, of an anthology of Cuban short fiction in translation, _New Short Fiction from Cuba_ (Northwestern University Press, 2007). She wrote a critical introduction to Antonio José Ponte's _Un arte de hacer ruinas_ (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005) and has published a number of journal articles and book chapters on contemporary Latin American fiction and Welsh diasporic literature.
Her current work analyzes uses of war in Latin American political speech, literature and the arts since the mid-twentieth century, with specific reference to Guantánamo, the "War on Terror" and Cuba's wars on imperialism; the "Dirty War" in Argentina; and Mexico's ongoing drug wars.
