In Latin American Literature The “Boom” In Latin American Literature

Literary Movement During 1960s and 1970s Latin American authors began to gain international attention at a rapid pace Considered beginning of modern Latin American literature Appealed especially to university students around world

According to Carlos Fuentes, "the so-called boom, in reality, is the result of a literature that has at least four centuries of existence and that felt an urgency in a definitive moment of our history to update and and to give order to the many lessons of the past.“

Influences Precursors: Jorge Luís Borges and Juan Rulfo Surrealism, Vanguardismo, Modernismo European and American literature after WWI and WWII James Joyce Jean Paul Sartre Virginia Woolf French New Novel William Faulkner Cuban Revolution

Major Authors Mario Vargas Llosa Carlos Fuentes Julio Cortázar La cuidad y los perros (1962) Carlos Fuentes La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962) Julio Cortázar Rayuela (1963) Gabriel García Márquez Cien años de soledad (1967) Guillermo Cabrera Infante Tres Tristes Tigres (1967) Severo Sarduy De donde son los cantantes (1967) José Donoso El obsceno pájaro de la noche (1970)

Characteristics Hard to define but common traits include: Break away from traditional literary devices Realism, picturesque, criollismo Focus on Latin America  history, culture, economic, and socio-political Innovate and experimental Magical realism/fantastic Existentialism Psychology Universal themes Language

Latin America’s New Novel Does not have a definite definition Cause an effect is substituted for multiple perspectives and intersecting plots, which makes the narrative seem fragmented Magical realism Literary creation Universal themes

New Novel continued Incorporate discussion about mass culture and mass consumption of information Play with words Reader creates and deciphers the text Anti-hero Social criticism Urban

Bibliography Donoso, José. Historia personal del Boom. Barcelona: Anagrama, 1972. Friedman, Edward H., L.Teresa Valdivieso, and Carmelo Virgillo, eds. Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispánica. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Ocasio, José. Literature of Latin America. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. Sklodowska, Elizbieta. “El Boom y la Nueva Novela.” Huellas de las literaturas hispanoamericanas. Ed. Ann Marie McCarthy. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002. 508-513.