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Latin American Boom

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The Latin American Boom (Boom Latinoamericano) is the name applied to a period during the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world. This sudden success (hence the movement's name) came in large part thanks to the fact that these authors' works were among the first Latin American novels to be published in Europe, by publishing houses such as Barcelona's Seix Barral in Spain. Indeed, Frederick M. Nunn writes that "Latin American novelists became world famous through their writing and their advocacy of political and social action, and because many of them had the good fortune to reach markets and audiences beyond Latin America through translation and travel--and sometimes through exile."[1] One of these published novels was the novel La ciudad y los Perros written by Mario Vargas Llosa.

The rise of Latin American literature starts with the writings of Jose Marti, Ruben Darío and José Asunción Silva's modernism stepping aside from the European literary canon. However, European modernist writers like James Joyce have influenced the writers of the Boom, as have the Latin American writers of the Vanguardia movement.(from:Coonrod Martinez, Elizabeth. Before the Boom: Latin American Revolutionary Novels of the 1920s. New York: University Press of America, 2001. Pp. 2-3,119)


Background of the Latin American Boom

A radical shift in the way in which history and literature were conceived, interpreted, and written produced a change in the self perception of Spanish American novelists between 1950 and 1975. The development of the cities, the coming of age of a large middle class, the Cuban Revolution, the Alliance for Progress, an increase in communication between the countries of Latin America, the greater importance of the mass media, and a greater attention to Latin America from Europe and the United States, contributed to this change. The most important political events of the period were the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the Chilean coup d´état in 1973, but there were also others that affected writing, as they generated explanations, testimonies, or served as a troubling background:

The greater attention paid to Spanish American novelists and their international success in the 1960´s, a phenomenon that was called the Boom, affected all writers and readers who lived through this important event. A number of gifted novelists, but what mainly brought writers together and focused the attention of the world on Spanish America was the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, which promised a new age. The period of euphoria can be considered closed when in 1971 the Cuban government hardened its party line and the poet Heberto Padilla was forced to reject in a public document his so-called decadent and deviant views. The furor over Padilla´s case brought to an end the affinity between Spanish American intellectuals and the Cuban inspirational myth.


Influences of the Latin American Boom

The history of the Spanish American novel from 1950 to 1975 saw a change in the standing of the native writers, who went from marginal and tolerated - the center having been earlier Paris and New York- to central and celebrated. Simultaneously there was a shift from the novel as history to history as a novel, from the power of facts to the preeminence of the world.

In general -and considering there are many countries and hundreds of important authors- at the start of the period Realism prevails, with novels tinged by an existentialist pessimism, with well-rounded characters lamenting their destinies, and a straightforward narrative line. In the 1960´s, language loosens up, gets hip, pop, streetwise, characters are much more complex, and the chronology becomes intricate, making of the reader an active participant in the deciphering of the text. Late in the period the political adventure goes sour, while the linguistic sphistication reaches a new height, and novelists turn more to a reflection on their own writing, a fiction on fiction or metafiction, while characters and story lines show the corrosive power of a Postmodern society, where all is equally available and insignificant. (information of Randolph D. Pope from Echevarría, González Roberto. "The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume 2: The Twentieth Century" Cambridge University Press. 1996)


Major representatives

Who is and who is not to be included in the Boom has been widely debated and never settled. On the other hand, a few writers exerted wide and undisputed influence. While the names of many other writers may be added to the list, the following may not be omitted: Vargas Llosa, Rulfo, Fuentes, Cortázar, and García Marquez.

The Boom's major representatives include:

  • The Mexicans Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz and Juan Rulfo. Rulfo, the author of two books, only ne of them a novel, was the acknowledge master incorporated a posteriori, a writer who balances social concern, verbal experimentation and unique style.

Fuentes not only wrote some of the most important novels of the period, but was also an indefatigable and brilliant publicist of Spanish America.

and especially


However, in the light of these authors' success, the work of a previous generation of writers also gained access to a new and expanded public, such as Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Ángel Asturias, and Alejo Carpentier). Jorge Luis Borges (1898-1986), whose most famous works include Fervor de Buenos Aires, Luna de Enfrente, El Aleph, Historia Universal de la Infamia, Ficciones, Elogio de las Sombras, informe de Crodie, Oro de los Tigres, Inquisiciones and Historia de la Eternidad wrote stories that he described as fiction or symbolic stories, with real or imaginary characters which move between the reality, magic and satiric scenes. As well as being a publishing phenomenon, the Boom introduced a series of novel aesthetic and stylistic features to world literature. Though the various Boom authors often differ very much from each other, and should not be regarded strictly as a school or movement, they have come to be associated above all with so-called magical realism.

Hallmarks

Magical realism

See also: Magical realism

The awestruck writings of the Chroniclers of the Indies and their sense of being in another world, conquering strange new lands unparalleled outside of chivalric romances, became a cultural touchstone for the people of Latin America. From these fantastical tales developed a new aesthetic, which matured into magical realism and (as conceived by Alejo Carpentier) marvelous realism or lo real maravilloso. According to this aesthetic, unreal things are treated as if realistic and mundane, and mundane things as if unreal. Plots, while often based on real experiences, incorporate strange, fantastic, and legendary elements, mythical peoples, speculative settings, and characters who, while plausible, could also be unreal, and combine the true, the imaginary, and the nonexistent in such a way that they are difficult to separate.

Comparing a novel written before the Latin American Boom to one written under its influence, the former is likely to strive for authenticity and reality, depicting a plain and somber reality, while the latter strives to show multiple facets of each character and each place. Boom literature breaks down the barriers between the fantastical and the mundane, transforming this mixture into a new reality. Of the Boom writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is most closely associated with the use of magical realism.

Historical fiction is another characteristic of the novels of the Boom period.[2]


Publishing places for the Latin American Boom novelists

It should not surprise anyone that most novels mentioned in the Latin American Boom were published in Havana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Asunción or Santiago. Those have been the sites of important publishing houses and strong centers of cultural innovation. Yet in this period many novels are published in Barcelona, reflecting the new interest of Spanish publishing houses in the Spanish American market.

  • Buenos Aires and Montevideo had their own local stars, such as Murena and Mallea, Bio Casares or Viñas, but some of their works do not travel well;
  • Santiago in Chile, is presided by the criticism of Alone, while the older generation of Benjamín Subercaseaux, Eduardo Barrios, Marta Brunet, and Manuel Rojas is quietly superseded by José Donoso. Other writers, such as Enrique Lafourcade, have a large national readership.
  • Cuba is a lively cultural center, first with the group of Orígenes, and then with Lunes de Revolución
  • In Colombia the rural novels of Caballero Calderon are displaced by García Márquez who is followed by Alvarez Gardeazábal. ¨
  • Mexico continues a tradition of strong regional writers and diverse schools of writing, from Yañez to Sainz, with novelists such as Luis Spota or Sergio Fernández, the first a popular, the other a refined, writer, both better known in Mexico than abroad. (information of Randolph D. Pope from Echevarría, González Roberto. "The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume 2: The Twentieth Century" Cambridge University Press. 1996.)

Post-Boom

Since the 1980s it has become common to speak of Post-Boom writers, most of whom were born during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. The Post-Boom is distinct from the Boom in various respects, most notably in the presence of female authors such as Isabel Allende, Luisa Valenzuela and Elena Poniatowska.[3]

Critique

A common criticism of the Boom is that it is too experimental and has a "tendency toward elitism" [4] Also oft criticized is the Boom's emphasis on masculinity, both in the fact that all of the movement's representatives were male and the treatment of female characters within the novels.

Chronology

Some of the major publications and landmarks of the Boom and its precursors:

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Nunn, 4.
  2. ^ Nunn, 73
  3. ^ Shaw, 10,22-23.
  4. ^ Shaw, 27-28

References

  • Coleman, Alexander. "Guide to the Latin American Boom." Review of José Donoso's The Boom In Spanish American Literature: A Personal History (New York: Colombia University Press). Boston Review (Fall 1977).
  • Levinson, Brett. The Ends of Literature: The Latin American "Boom" in the Neoliberal Marketplace Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  • Nunn, Frederick M. Collisions With History: Latin American Fiction and Social Science from El Boom to the New World Order. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2001.
  • Shaw, Donald L. The Post-Boom in Spanish American Fiction. Albany: SUNY Press, 1998.
  • Echevarría, González Roberto. "The Cambridge History of Latin America, Volume 2: The Twentieth Century" Cambridge University Press. 1996
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