LGBT literature in Ecuador, defined as literature written by Ecuadorian authors that involves plots, themes or characters that are part of or are related to sexual diversity, had its earliest exponent in the short story The Man Who Was Kicked to Death, published in 1926 by Pablo Palacio, became the first Ecuadorian literary work to openly address homosexuality.«La diversidad sexual es un tabú en la literatura nacional». El Telégrafo.June 19, 2014. Archived from the original on October 15, 2019. Accessed January 4, 2020.Palacio, Pablo (2000). Obras completas. Universidad de Costa Rica Editorial. p. 401. Accessed July 29, 2021.
Throughout the twentieth century, several authors reflected the religious and cultural conceptions of the time, which is why the representation of LGBT characters often had negative connotations or tragic endings, especially considering that homosexuality was decriminalized in Ecuador in 1997. A gradual change in these representations took place at the end of the 20th century and was accentuated in the early years of the 21st century,Artieda, Pedro (July 2, 2017). «Narrativa queer: los adjetivos que ‘califican’ la diversidad del deseo». La Hora. Archived from the original on January 5, 2020. Accessed January 5, 2020.Artieda, Pedro (October 20, 2014). «S obre el agua se refresca el amor entre mujeres». El Telégrafo. Archived from the original on October 15, 2019. Accessed October 15, 2019. with the first Ecuadorian novels to portray same-sex love relationships in a positive light,Artieda, Pedro (April 30, 2014). «Con tinta roja se escribe la diversidad en la narrativa ecuatoriana». El Telégrafo. Archived from the original on January 19, 2018. in particular Salvo el calvario and Eses fatales, both published in 2005.Medina, Clara (September 8, 2005). «Manzano devela claves de su obra». El Universo. Archived from the original on September 11, 2017. Accessed January 4, 2020.Ortega, Alicia (October 20, 2014). «Homoerotismo y memoria afectiva en dos novelas escritas por mujeres». El Telégrafo. Archived from the original on April 30, 2018. Accessed April 30, 2018.
In recent years, several Ecuadorian literary works with LGBT themes have achieved critical success and received national and international recognition, including novels such as Pequeños palacios en el pecho (2014), by Luis Borja Corral,Ortega, Alicia (February 23, 2015). «Pequeños palacios en el pecho, de Luis Borja». El Telégrafo. Archived from the original on January 5, 2020. Accessed January 5, 2020. Gabriel(a) (2019), by Raúl Vallejo,García, Alexander (July 1, 2019). «Raúl Vallejo aborda la otredad en ‘Gabriel(a)’». El Comercio. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Accessed on January 5, 2020. and some works by Mónica Ojeda.Sanguino, Andrea Carretero. «Las fronteras difusas del horror y la belleza: notas sobre Nefando (2016), de Mónica Ojeda.». II Seminario de Novela Hispanoamericana del Boom a la Posmodernidad. Accessed July 30, 2021.Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Pleitez Vela, Tania (2019). El dolor y el sexo más abyectos: Tratamiento de la violencia en Nefando (2016) de Mónica Ojeda. Archived from the original on March 19, 2020. Accessed July 30, 2021.García, Alexander (March 6, 2018). «‘Mandíbula’ es una novela que explora lo femenino-monstruoso». El Comercio. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018. Accessed July 29, 2021.
Narrative
First representations The earliest documented literary representation of characters or themes related to homosexuality in Ecuador dates back to 1926, in the short story The Man Who Was Kicked to Death by Pablo Palacio. The plot of the story follows a protagonist who reads a chronicle about the murder of a man labeled as "vicious", so he decides to investigate the case and, at the end, concludes that the crime was perpetrated by the father of a teenager whom the man had tried to seduce.
Four years later, in 1930, the Guayaquil writer Joaquín Gallegos Lara published the short story "Al subir el aguaje" as part of the book Los que se van, which constitutes the first Ecuadorian literary work to portray female homosexuality. The protagonist of the story, the Manflor, is described with characteristics commonly defined as masculine, in addition to the fact that the term "manflor" was at that time an Argentinian idiom used to designate men considered effeminate. In the story, the Manflor confronts Cuchucho, who, despite knowing the rumor about her sexual orientation, tries to seduce and then rape her. In the end the two engage in a duel in which the Manflor emerges victorious.
Although both stories depict homophobia at that time, and in the case of Gallegos Lara's story even a symbolic victory over macho violence, the narrators reproduce the discriminatory discourse to refer to their characters. In the case of Palacio's story, the protagonist asserts that the murdered man "had had a deviation of his instincts since he was a child, which made him depraved from then on". The narrator of "Al subir el aguaje", on the other hand, refers to Manflor with the derogatory term "marimacho".
Another early representation took place in the novel Camarada (1933), by Humberto Salvador from Guayaquil. One of the characters portrayed in the novel is Toya, a woman who accepts herself as a lesbian.Serrano Sáchez, Raúl (2005). Humberto Salvador: una escritura marginal en la vanguardia de la narrativa latinoamericana del siglo XX. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. p. 10. Archived from the original on August 14, 2017. Accessed August 10, 2020. Gloria, another of the characters in the novel, tells of her lesbian experiences in a school of nuns and the jealousy that her love affair with one of her classmates generated in one of the nuns. She also reveals to the protagonist that lesbian relationships were very common in such schools.Balseca, Fernando (2009). Sociedad, cultura y literatura. Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences. p. 70. . .
Second half of the 20th century In the following decades more literary works with LGBT characters appeared, although many of the representations maintained negative connotations. An example is the story "Cara e' santo" (1953) by Rafael Díaz Ycaza, in which Julio Barbosa, a political lieutenant of Samborondón, unsuccessfully tries to seduce the protagonist. At the end of the story Barboza appears dead floating in a river.Correa Astudillo, María Augusta (2008). Homosexualidad, ciudad y muerte. Construcción del personaje homosexual en el cuento ecuatoriano del siglo XX. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca. original Pedro Jorge Vera also gave a negative vision in his story "Los señores vencen" (1968), where a young homosexual who commits suicide leaves a letter to his father in which he refers to himself as "a disgusting little monster" and "hopelessly sick".
A notorious novel is Por qué Jesús no vuelve, published in 1963 by Benjamín Carrión. In it, the author criticizes the conservatives of the time but at the same time includes several passages in which he takes a negative view of homosexuality by suggesting that the sexual orientation of one of the characters was caused by seeing the physical abuse of his mother, including "sexual inversion" in the list of defects of another and pointing out in a dialogue that young people should be oriented to keep them away from "intersexuality". However, in a passage near the end of the novel, Carrión departs from the stance of Ecuadorian writers of the time and takes a stand against homophobia when he states, in relation to one of the characters: "Maricón. Yes, he was, but he didn't hurt anyone that way".Artieda, Pedro (December 1, 2017). «Benjamín Carrión y el lenguaje de la diversidad». Cartón Piedra (317) (Guayaquil). pp. 8–11. Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Accessed on January 5, 2020.
The writer Eugenia Viteri published several stories about homosexual characters during the 60's and 70's. The first of them was "Los impuros", published in 1962 in the book Doce cuentos (Twelve stories), in which she narrates the wake of a homosexual man after his suicide. His parents question themselves, ashamed about the wrongs they could have done to have such a son and express their hostility when they see the arrival of their son's lover, who turns out to be the only one who loved the deceased as he was. "New Lilianas", published in 1969, is remarkably negative in representation: it tells the story of a woman's marriage to a man who is soon shown to be a sadistic abuser, who married her with the sole intention of concealing his homosexuality.Handelsman, Michael (1976). Amazons and artists: a study of Ecuadorian women's prose. Gainesville: University of Florida. Archived from the original on January 5, 2020. Accessed January 4, 2020.
Another story on these themes written by Viteri is "Florencia", published in 1977, in the book of short stories Los zapatos y los sueños (Shoes and dreams), which is the story of two women (Isaura and Florencia) who had a sentimental relationship that ended when Florencia decides to leave Isaura for a man. As the years go by, Florencia has a life marked by poverty and unhappiness and finally dies of tuberculosis. During her funeral, Isaura reproaches her for having wasted the possibility of being happy together by saying: "Together we were invincible. Strong as the herb that stirs the wind, washes away the dust, moistens the rain and -even if everyone stomps on it-, keeps facing the sky...!".
As can be observed in the stories by Ycaza, Vera and Viteri, death (often by suicide) is a recurrent end for LGBT characters in the narrative of the time.Artieda, Pedro. «La narrativa gay ecuatoriana dialoga a través de la culpa y la muerte». Diners Magazine. Archived from the original on April 20, 2020. Accessed on April 20, 2020. This is replicated in the story "Big Angel, my love" (Angelote, amor mío) by Javier Vásconez, published in 1982 in the book Far-Away City (Ciudad lejana),«Angelote, amor mío, en edición ilustrada». El Telégrafo. October 19, 2015. Archived from the original on January 5, 2020. Accessed January 5, 2020. a narrative in baroque language that follows the internal monologue of Julián during the wake of his lover, Jacinto, a homosexual man belonging to Quito's upper class.Villafuerte, Carlos (July 31, 2013). «"Angelote, amor mío": un demonio en una ciudad conventual». Matavilela. Archived from the original on August 1, 2015. Accessed January 5, 2020. The story, which is now considered a classic of Ecuadorian literature,Cárdenas, Eliécer (October 6, 2015). «El escritor Javier Vásconez». El Tiempo. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020. Accessed 30 January 2020.Bayas, Jorge (June 8, 2021). «“Angelote, amor mío”: entre la voz y el cuerpo, entre la vida y la muerte». Radio Cocoa. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Accessed 29 July 2021. was the subject of controversy at the time of its publication for criticizing the moral hypocrisy and religiosity of society, which led to its reading being banned by the Ministry of Education. Another example is the novel Azulinaciones (1989), by Natasha Salguero, in which the protagonist's best friend, known as Negro, commits suicide because of his sexual orientation.Chamorro, Diego (2022). «Desbordar la escritura: Azulinaciones, deconstrucción de la novela pulsional». Kipus: revista andina de letras (Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar) (51): 131. ISSN 1390-0102. Archived from the original on 14 October 2022. Accessed 14 October 2022. In the case of the story "It's friday forever, Marilin" (Es viernes para siempre, Marilín) (1997), by Huilo Ruales, the death of the LGBT character is caused by a homophobic attack perpetrated by his own mother.Pozo, Ana María (2011). «Es viernes para siempre, Marilín: Itinerario hacia el no lugar.». Malaidea: cuadernos de reflexión (2): 293.