Latin American Literature

E

Contemporary Trends

As the 20th century drew to a close, questions of sexuality and gender became prominent in Latin American literature. Argentina’s Manuel Puig confirms the notion that “politics is personal” by juxtaposing questions of persecuted sexual preference and political identification in El beso de la mujer araña (1976; Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1979). Made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1985, the novel consolidates the international critical attention Puig attracted with La traición de Rita Hayworth (1968; Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, 1971), a novel that contrasts the reality of Latin American modernity with the modern ideal portrayed in Hollywood films.

Male voices dominated Latin American writing in the 20th century, and literary critics now recognize that masculine themes mark the boom period in particular. However, the incorporation of feminist perspectives into Latin American literary studies has led to the rediscovery of a legacy of female writers, extending back at least to Juana Inés de la Cruz. Among recent figures, perhaps the two who have received the most international attention are Mexico’s and Chile’s Isabel Allende. With La noche de Tlatelolco (1971; Massacre in Mexico, 1975), Poniatowska established her credentials as a highly skilled writer of documentary narrative, journalistic commentary, and the biographical novel in which she focuses on women’s experiences. Her novel Hasta no verte, Jesús mío (Here’s Looking at You, Sweet Jesus, 1969) is based on extensive interviews with a woman involved in the 1910 Mexican revolution. As such, the novel places women within a historical event that previously had been reported on almost exclusively by men.

Allende’s work provides a woman’s interpretation of Latin American social history as well, especially of male-centered military dictatorships. Her novel La casa de los espíritus (1982; The House of the Spirits, 1985), focuses on the 1973 coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in telling the story of four generations of women. Allende uses narrative techniques associated with magic realism to provide a multifaceted interpretation of social history.

The success of 1992 Academy Award-winning film Like Water for Chocolate confirmed the reputation of Mexico’s . In Como agua para chocolate (1990; Like Water for Chocolate, 1993), Esquivel echoes Poniatowska’s efforts to place women in the history of the Mexican Revolution. In this case, Esquivel’s protagonist successfully resists patriarchal forces in asserting her personal freedom. Esquivel, like many other women writers in Latin America, brings a highly original perspective to social history.

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Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú (1983; I, Rigoberta Menchú, 1984), by the winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, Rigoberta Menchú Túm, is now a classic of international feminism. In this testimony, Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant, tells of her struggle against the forces of masculine tyranny still present throughout Latin America.

VI

Drama

Drama and theater have exercised an enormous influence in Latin America, apart from their literary significance. During the period of European conquest and colonization, theater in Spanish and indigenous languages often presented reactions to the Spanish invasion. Another theater tradition underscored the authority of Christianity and the virtues of the Christianization of the continent. During the 19th century, comedies of manners were written and performed in the major cultural centers. Drama based on a realistic portrayal of life did not develop until the late 19th century, when Uruguayan-born playwright began staging his works in Argentina. Sánchez analyzed the social conflicts of rural, immigrant, and other marginal classes in such plays as La gringa (1904; The Foreign Girl, 1942), about the animosity between Italian immigrants and Creoles, and Barranca abajo (Downhill, 1905), about an aging gaucho.

Theatrical activity has been particularly intense in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Popular plays include Las manos de Dios (The Hands of God, produced 1956, published 1957) by Guatemala’s Carlos Solórzano, who has done virtually all of his work in Mexico City, and El campo (1967; The Camp, 1971) by Argentina’s Griselda Gambaro. Solórzano’s work expresses disgust with the Roman Catholic Church, which he feels uses its power to hold the common people in social and economic slavery. Gambaro’s play, which represents the humiliation of the socially weak, belongs to a tradition of plays that emerged in the context of military dictatorships that ruled much of Latin America in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

VII

Assessment

Latin American literature enjoys international recognition today. Extensive translations into English and many other languages have contributed to the awareness of Latin America’s cultural richness, both as a whole and as individual societies. Nobel Prizes awarded to four Latin American authors—Mistral, Neruda, García Márquez, and Paz—have acknowledged this richness and identified important facets of this literature. It is unfortunate that Borges, perhaps the most influential writer Latin America has yet produced, did not receive such recognition. Finally, a growing exchange between Latin America and the United States, which has a huge Spanish-speaking population with Latin American affiliations, will undoubtedly continue to contribute to the considerable impact Latin American writing now enjoys in the United States.

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