Key Spanish and Latin American Authors of the Mid-20th Century
Spanish Novelists (Mid-20th C.)
Luis Martín Santos (1924-1964)
Luis Martín Santos, a renowned psychiatrist, died in a traffic accident that prematurely interrupted a brilliant career. He published works on psychiatry before his untimely death.
Juan Marsé (1933-2020)
Juan Marsé (Barcelona) was self-taught and a natural novelist. Consistently realistic, but employing renewed techniques, he criticized the complacent bourgeoisie in his early novels. He achieved a more ideologically charged critique in Últimas tardes con Teresa (Last Afternoons with Teresa), a groundbreaking work analyzing the bourgeoisie playing at being revolutionary and the outsider attempting to integrate.
Juan Benet (1927-1993)
Juan Benet (Madrid) is one of the emblematic authors of narrative renewal. His firm stylistic principles advocated inquiry and textual discourse over traditional plot elements. His work focused almost exclusively on the recreation of the Spanish Civil War in a mythical region. His best-known novel is Herrumbrosas lanzas (Rusty Spears).
Miguel Espinosa (1926-1982)
Miguel Espinosa (Murcia) is among the most original experimental novelists. His first long novel, Escuela de Mandarines (Mandarin School), combines critical intent and experimentalism. On one hand, it parodies and satirizes the lifestyles and the political, religious, and educational institutions of Francoist Spain; on the other, it uses different narrative structures, sometimes approaching the essay form.
Key Latin American Literary Voices
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974)
His masterpiece, El Señor Presidente (The President), a novel in the vein of Tirano Banderas by Valle-Inclán, is a grotesque denunciation of the arbitrary use of political power.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
His stories renewed the short story genre in Spanish. He aimed to delve into abstractions like time, eternity, and the relationship between man’s inner and outer worlds.
Juan Rulfo (1917-1986)
One of the most influential writers for subsequent generations. His stories offer a unique worldview, masterfully shifting from the real to the mythical. He poetically presents narratives as denunciations of injustice, intensely expressing magic and the fusion between reality and hallucination.
Ernesto Sabato (1911-2011)
Author of the novels El túnel (The Tunnel) and Sobre héroes y tumbas (On Heroes and Tombs).
Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)
Alongside Borges, he is considered a great innovator of the short story genre. He preferred the fantastic tale, often based on unusual events within everyday life (e.g., Bestiario, Final del Juego, Las Armas Secretas). Rayuela (Hopscotch) is a complex novel with interchangeable chapters and multiple reading levels, a bold experimental text attempting to express existential anxiety.
Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-1994)
His work presents a subjective world, full of obsessions and tormented characters on the edge. His two masterpieces, El astillero (The Shipyard) and Juntacadáveres (Body Snatcher), depict a closed, stifling world of existential absurdity, using multiple narrative points of view.
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012)
He used systematic crossing of temporal planes while addressing the social problems of his country (Mexico), as seen in Cambio de piel (A Change of Skin).
Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936)
He alternates novels using innovative techniques with those of a more traditional character. A key work is Conversación en La Catedral (Conversation in the Cathedral).