LATIN AMERICAN

LITERATURE
 Latin American literature consists of
the oral and written literature of Latin America in
several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese,
and the indigenous languages of the Americas as well
as literature of the United States written in the Spanish
language. It rose to particular prominence globally
during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to
the international success of the style known as magical
realism. As such, the region's literature is often
associated solely with this style, with the 20th Century
literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and
with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez.
Latin American literature has a rich and complex
tradition of literary production that dates back many
centuries.
Pre-Columbian literature
 Pre-Columbian cultures were primarily oral,
though the Aztecs and Mayans, for instance,
produced elaborate codices. Oral accounts of
mythological and religious beliefs were also
sometimes recorded after the arrival of
European colonizers, as was the case with
the Popol Vuh. Moreover, a tradition of oral
narrative survives to this day, for instance among
the Quechua-speaking population of Peru and
the Quiché of Guatemala.
Colonial literature
 From the very moment when Europeans encountered the New
World, early explorers and conquistadores produced written
accounts and crónicas of their experience, such as Columbus's
letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of
Mexico. At times, colonial practices stirred a lively debate about the
ethics of colonization and the status of the indigenous peoples, as
reflected for instance in Bartolomé de las Casas's Brief Account of
the Destruction of the Indies.
 Mestizos and natives also contributed to the body of colonial
literature. Authors such as El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Guaman
Pomawrote accounts of the Spanish conquest that show a
perspective that often contrasts with the colonizers' accounts.
 Nineteenth-century
Literature
 The 19th century was a period of "foundational fictions" (in
critic Doris Sommer's words),[citation needed] novels in
the Romantic or Naturalisttraditions that attempted to establish
a sense of national identity, and which often focused on the role
and rights of the indigenous or the dichotomy of "civilization or
barbarism", for which see, the Argentine Domingo
Sarmiento's Facundo (1845), the Colombian Jorge
Isaacs's María (1867), Ecuadorian Juan León
Mera's Cumandá (1879), or the Brazilian Euclides da Cunha's Os
Sertões (1902). Such works are still the bedrocks of national
canons, and usually mandatory elements of high school
curricula.
 The literary movements of the nineteenth
century in Latin America range from
Neoclassicism at the beginning of the century
to Romanticism in the middle of the century, to
Realism and Naturalism in the final third of the
century, and finally to the invention of
Modernismo, a distinctly Latin American
literary movement, at the end of the
nineteenth century. The next sections discuss
prominent trends in these movements more
thoroughly.
 Other important works of 19th century Latin American literature
include regional classics, such as José Hernández's epic
poem Martín Fierro(1872). The story of a poor gaucho drafted to
fight a frontier war against Indians, Martín Fierro is an example of
the "gauchesque", an Argentine genre of poetry centered
around the lives of gauchos.
 The literary movements of the nineteenth century in Latin
America range from Neoclassicism at the beginning of the
century to Romanticism in the middle of the century, to Realism
and Naturalism in the final third of the century, and finally to the
invention of Modernismo, a distinctly Latin American literary
movement, at the end of the nineteenth century. The next
sections discuss prominent trends in these movements more
thoroughly.
Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism,
and Emerging Literary Trends
 The Latin American wars of Independence that occurred in the early
nineteenth century in Latin America led to literary themes of identity,
resistance, and human rights. Writers often followed and innovated
popular literary movements (such as Romanticism, Realism, and
Naturalism), but many were also exploring ideas such as nationalism and
independence. Cultural independence spread across Latin America during
this time, and writers depicted Latin American themes and locations in
their works. While literature that questioned the colonial order may have
emerged initially during the seventeenth century in Latin America, it rose
in popularity in the form of resistance against Spain, the United States, and
other imperialist nations in the nineteenth century. Latin American writers
sought a Latin American identity, and this would later be closely tied with
the Modernismo literary movement.
Modernismo, the Vanguards, and
Boom precursors
 In the late 19th century, modernismo emerged, a poetic movement whose
founding text was the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío's Azul (1888). This was the
first Latin American literary movement to influence literary culture outside
of the region, and was also the first truly Latin American literature, in that
national differences were no longer as much of an issue and authors sought
to establish Latin American connections. José Martí, for instance, though a
Cuban patriot, also lived in Mexico and the United States and wrote for
journals in Argentina and elsewhere. In 1900 the Uruguayan José Enrique
Rodó wrote what became read as a manifesto for the region's cultural
awakening, Ariel. Delmira Agustini, one of the female figures of
modernismo, wrote poetry that both utilized typical modernist images (such
as swans) and adapted them with feminist messages and erotic themes, as
critic Sylvia Molloy describes.
 Though modernismo itself is often seen as aestheticist
and anti-political, some poets and essayists, Martí
among them but also the Peruvians Manuel González
Prada and José Carlos Mariátegui, introduced
compelling critiques of the contemporary social order
and particularly the plight of Latin America's
indigenous peoples. In this way, the early twentieth
century also saw the rise of indigenismo, a trend
previously popularized by Clorinda Matto de Turner,
that was dedicated to representing indigenous culture
and the injustices that such communities were
undergoing, as for instance with the Peruvian José
María Arguedas and the Mexican Rosario
Castellanos.
Poetry after Modernismo
 Modernist poetry progressed into further experimental poetry, particularly
of the Vanguardia, or Avant Garde, which gave birth to a variety of artistic
movements and trends. Twentieth-century poetry in Latin America has
often expressed love and political commitment, particularly given the
model provided by Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo and
Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, and followed by such poets as the
Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal, Salvadoran Roque Dalton and
Peruvians Blanca Varela, Jorge Eduardo Eielson or Javier Sologuren.
 Other significant poets include the Cuban Nicolás Guillén, the
Chilean Gonzalo Rojas, and the Uruguayan Mario Benedetti, not to
mention the Nobel laureates Gabriela Mistral and Octavio Paz, the latter
also a distinguished critic and essayist, famous particularly for his book on
Mexican culture, The Labyrinth of Solitude.
 The Boom
 After World War II, Latin America enjoyed increasing
economic prosperity, and a new-found confidence also
gave rise to a literary boom. From 1960 to 1967, some of
the major seminal works of the boom were published and
before long became widely noticed, admired, and
commented on beyond Latin America itself. Many of
these novels and collections of short stories were
somewhat rebellious from the general point of view of
Latin America culture. Authors crossed traditional
boundaries, experimented with language, and often
mixed different styles of writing in their works.
 Structures of literary works were also changing. Boom
writers ventured outside traditional narrative
structures, embracing non-linearity and experimental
narration. The figure of Jorge Luis Borges, though not
a Boom author per se, was extremely influential for
the Boom generation. Latin American authors were
inspired by North American and European authors
such as William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Virginia
Woolf, by the legendary Spanish poet and
dramatist Federico García Lorca as well as by each
other's works; many of the authors knew one another,
which led to a mutual crossbreeding of styles.
 Post-Boom and contemporary
literature
 Post-Boom literature is sometimes characterized by a tendency towards
irony and humor, as the narrative of Alfredo Bryce Echenique, and
towards the use of popular genres, as in the work of Manuel Puig. Some
writers felt the success of the Boom to be a burden, and spiritedly
denounced the caricature that reduces Latin American literature to
magical realism. Hence the Chilean Alberto Fuguet came up
with McOndo as an antidote to the Macondo-ism that demanded of all
aspiring writers that they set their tales in steamy tropical jungles in which
the fantastic and the real happily coexisted. In a mock diary by post-
modernist Giannina Braschi the Narrator of the Latin American Boom is
shot by a Macy's make-up artist who accuses the Boom of capitalizing
on her solitude. [3] Other writers, however, have traded on the Boom's
success: see for instance Laura Esquivel's pastiche of magical realism
in Como agua para chocolate.
 WRITERS OF LATIN
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
 Borges was a precocious writer. He published his
first work, a translation of Oscar Wilde's "The
Happy Prince," at age 7. However, Jorge Luis
Borges, the classic writer, did not surface until his
late thirties. Always afflicted with poor eyesight,
Borges fell down a staircase and sustained a
severe head injury. It was during his recovery
that he turned his attention to his writing abilities,
and in an attempt to prove he could still, or at
all, write, he began a story which was to
become "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius."
 Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
 Few Latin American authors have had the luxury to ignore
politics. Neruda was an outspoken voice in Latin American
world politics, a move which allowed him, in some ways, to
alienate everyone. He controversially favored Joseph Stalin
and had his library ransacked and desecrated by the ruling
Chilean regime. He depended on the kindness of supporters
across Latin America to escape. Talk to any of his devoted
readers, and you’re sure to find something about his politics
that they both admire and condemn.
Gabriel García Márquez
(1927-2014)
 Gabriel García Márquez might be the most famous of Latin
American authors. Affectionately called “Gabo” throughout the
Spanish-speaking world, García Márquez took the magical
insights of Carpentier a step further. The fiction of lo real
maravilloso entrenched itself in the extremity of Latin American
life, but still kept itself within the realms of the real. García
Márquez’s magical realist world blends beautifully the
magically quotidian (ice, magnets) with everyday magic (divine
ascensions, raining flowers). The neglected becomes
celebrated and García Márquez ferries his reader through a
world of the most fabulous distortions. With novels like One
Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of
Cholera, García Márquez has achieved the great literary triumph
of helping his readers see the world anew.
 Gabriela Mistral
(1889-1957)
 Gabriela Mistral’s life was in many ways dedicated to
teaching, although she was an autodidact whose formal
education ended around age twelve. She taught in Chile’s
growing national school system, advocated for accessible
schooling around the world, and was a professor at colleges
like Barnard and Vassar. Her poetry captures not only the
wide political themes of Latin American identity and
progress, but also the intimate spheres of loss, grief, and
motherhood. She remains the only female Latin American
author to win the Nobel Prize.
 Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
 Like many others in this article, Paz led a political
life. He was a Mexican ambassador until 1968,
when student demonstrators were killed by the
nation’s military and police force in the Tlateloco
massacre. He also wrote and spoke out
frequently against the regimes of Stalin and
Castro. His poetry, for which he won the 1990
Nobel Prize, often explores solitude and
sensuality as well as language and silence.
 Carlos Fuentes (1928-

2012)
Carlos Fuentes taught at many United States
universities. Fuentes was very politically involved and held political
positions while continuing to write. He was the Mexican
ambassador to France for about two years before resigning in
protest of the appointment of a rival. His opinions, such as his
support for a Nicaraguan political party, estranged him from
another writer-diplomat, Octavio Paz. The FBI closely monitored
him and worked to deter his visa applications in the 1960s. His
books reflect a constant political striving, interrogating the ideals
of revolution, power, equality, justice, and violence. Fuentes’
fiction, like his most famous work, The Death of Artemio Cruz,
happily utilizes the tools of multiple narration and interior
monologue.
Isabel Allende (1947)
 Allende, a post-Boom author, follows in the tradition of her
predecessors. Her novels frequently blend myth and reality. She draws
from the fount of magical realism that has long helped capture the
Latin American experience.
 Allende began her career in television and journalism and working on
the editorial staff of magazines. As a reporter, she was able to get an
interview with Pablo Neruda, who told her that she had too much
imagination for a journalist. He suggested that she begin writing
novels instead. As a result, her literary career has a semi-accidental
nature. If it wasn’t for outside encouragement, and a letter to her dying
grandfather (that developed into The House of the Spirits, her first
book), who knows how long her career would have been delayed.
Today, she is regarded as a Latin American treasure and figure of world
culture. She has appeared in Olympic ceremonies, won Chile’s National
Literature Prize, and won a Presidential Medal of Freedom.