Latin American Literature: Key Authors and Works
First Generation of Latin American Authors
First generation
The success achieved in Europe by Hispanic novelists of the sixties came from earlier writers, no less exceptional, who were hardly known outside their countries.
Juan Rulfo (1918-1986)
Juan Rulfo (1918-1986) is the author of books of short stories, The Plain in Flames, a short novel, Pedro Páramo, and some film scripts. Both in his stories and in his solitary, self-absorbed characters, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and surrounded by a landscape that is always the same: a desolate plain, sons and inhospitable land, distant peoples, and harsh climates. This landscape is also a metaphor for the spiritual, as the characters who live there are camouflaged with the surroundings: individuals dry, rough, and suffering. The themes are loneliness, pain, fate, and death.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is the author of novels but short stories brought together in successive volumes: Fictions, The Aleph, and The Book of Sand. In his stories, Borges goes beyond the traditional realism of Latin American narrative and introduces fantastic elements that challenge not only the realist aesthetic but also reality itself. There is a constant presence of classical myths, literary references, the use of symbols (the tiger, the labyrinth, libraries), and a taste for paradox. Literature itself occupies the central place in his work, becoming the narrative theme and object of philosophical speculation. The book or the library become metaphors for the world, for in them are the keys to the universe and, at the same time, evidence of the lack of access to the deep mysteries of a reality whose very existence is doubtful. The conviction that Borges cannot be a true key explains things in his stories: the world as a confusing maze, the uncertain fate of humans, death, classic philosophical problems (time and its apparent circularity, the mysteries of eternity and the infinite), and the identity of beings and things, always illusory.
Second Generation of Latin American Authors
Second generation
In the sixties, the Latin American narrative gained wide international circulation.
Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)
Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) incorporated the wonderful element into his texts, but he does not praise nature or the American past; instead, his stories juxtapose the fantastic and the realistic. The fantastic level is as real as the realistic level. If the reader feels that one is fantastic, it is because it is in our daily lives; we proceed with a logical notion of realistic narrative. Cortázar’s neofantastic literature questions a society built on faith in reason. Absurdity and irrationality are part of everyday life, and their exploration leads to the discovery of hidden facets of reality and entering it beyond appearances. He is known as an author of stories, and the meetings in volumes: Bestiary, End of Fire, and Secret Weapons.
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez reveals from his stories (the litter…) some characteristics of his later work: great storytelling ability, a mix of real and imaginary, a fusion of myth and history, characters, themes, and techniques of these early books in his extensive work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. This novel reflects the life of seven generations of a family, the Buendía, who from the patriarchs—Ursula and José Arcadio—are obsessed with the curse of the birth of a child with a pig’s tail. To illustrate this history, it provides the evolution of Latin America, representative of Macondo since its foundation until its destruction from colonization, civil war, and capitalism. He has also continued to collect stories in several volumes, including 14 Cent The Pilgrims, The Incredible and Sad Story of Erendira and Her Grandmother, and Lacandida Soulless.