Latin American literature
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.
Pre-Columbian cultures are documented as primarily oral, although the Mayans and Aztecs -- in present-day Mexico and some Central American countries -- for instance, produced elaborate codices.
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 the Aztec Empire.
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.
During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, the context within which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays.
[2] Toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, a distinctive criollo literary tradition emerged, including the first novels such as José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento (1816).
Likewise, Alberto Blest Gana's Martin Rivas (1862), widely acknowledged as the first Chilean novel, was at once a passionate love story and a national epic about revolution.
[5][6] Other foundation fictions include the Colombian Jorge Isaacs's María (1867), Ecuadorian Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879), or the Brazilian Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões (1902).
A Naturalist trail-blazer, Peruvian Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera penned Blanca Sol (1888) to critique women's lack of practical work options in her society.
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.
[12] 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.
At the same time, Roberto Arlt offered a very different style, closer to mass culture and popular literature, reflecting the urbanization and European immigration that was shaping the Southern Cone.
In the 1930s many artists treated to used a new style to express emotions through the written word, however it is essential to name the Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar Pietri as the greatest exponent, who is considered the undisputed father of this literary avant-garde who gives life to Magical Realism with his novel Las lanzas coloradas published in 1931, since it mentions it in search of a name that would explain and reflect the needs that were lived at the time.
The writer who would continue In the 1940s, the Cuban novelist and musicologist Alejo Carpentier coined the term "lo real maravilloso" and, along with the Mexican Juan Rulfo and the Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias, would prove a precursor of the Boom of Latin American literature its signature style of "magic realism".
[13] Masters of the prose poem include Jorge Luis Borges ("Everything and Nothing"), Pablo Neruda (Passions and Impressions), Octavio Paz (Aguila o Sol?/Eagle or Sun?
[14][13] Leaders of the vanguard whose poetry express love, romance, and a commitment to left leaning regional politics are Cesar Vallejo (Peru) and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda (Chile).
[13] Following their lead are Ernesto Cardenal (Nicaragua), Roque Dalton (El Salvador), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba), Gonzalo Rojas (Chile) and Mario Benedetti (Uruguay), and Peruvians Blanca Varela, Jorge Eduardo Eielson or Javier Sologuren.
From 1966 to 1968, Emir Rodríguez Monegal published his influential Latin American literature monthly Mundo Nuevo, with excerpts of unreleased novels from then-new writers such as Guillermo Cabrera Infante or Severo Sarduy, including two chapters of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad in 1966.
In 1967, the published book was one of the Boom's defining novels, which led to the association of Latin American literature with magic realism, though other important writers of the period such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes do not fit so easily within this framework.
Miguel Ángel Asturias was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, making his magical realist, metaphor-heavy, folkloristic and sometimes politically charged novels widely known in Europe and North America.
Hence the Chilean Alberto Fuguet coined McOndo as an antidote to the Macondo-ism that demanded of aspiring writers that they set their tales in steamy tropical jungles in which the fantastic and the real happily coexisted.
[18] Overall, contemporary literature in the region is vibrant and varied, ranging from the best-selling Paulo Coelho and Isabel Allende to the more avant-garde and critically acclaimed work of writers such as Diamela Eltit, Giannina Braschi, Luisa Valenzuela, Marcos Aguinis, Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Ampuero, Jorge Marchant Lazcano, Alicia Yánez, Jaime Bayly, Alonso Cueto, Edmundo Paz Soldán, Gioconda Belli, Jorge Franco, Daniel Alarcon, Víctor Montoya or Mario Mendoza Zambrano.
Other important figures include the Argentine César Aira, the Peruvian-Mexican Mario Bellatin or the Colombian Fernando Vallejo, whose La virgen de los sicarios depicted the violence in Medellín under the influence of the drug trade.
Latin American authors who figured in prominent literary critic Harold Bloom's The Western Canon list of the most enduring works of world literature include: Rubén Dário, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Severo Sarduy, Reinaldo Arenas, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, César Vallejo, Miguel Ángel Asturias, José Lezama Lima, José Donoso, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
[24][25] Prominent 21st-century authors whose works are widely available, taught, and translated into many languages include Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Jorge Volpi, Junot Díaz, Giannina Braschi, Elena Poniatowska, Julia Alvarez, Diamela Eltit, and Ricardo Piglia.
