Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of Latin America. Latin American literature rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries.
History
Pre-Columbian literature
Pre-Columbian cultures are documented as primarily oral, although the Mayans and Aztecs – in present-day Mexico and some Central American countries – for instance, produced elaborate codices. Maya script consisted of complex glyphs describing history, mythologies, etc. The Incas in present-day Peru expressed written records through Quipu. Oral accounts of mythological and religious beliefs were also sometimes recorded after the arrival of European colonizers, as was the case with the Popol Vuh. A tradition of oral narrative survives to this day, for instance among the Quechua-speaking population of Peru and the Quiché of Guatemala.
Colonial literature From the very moment when Europeans encountered the New World, early explorers and conquistadores produced written accounts and crónicas of their experience, such as Columbus's letters or Bernal Díaz del Castillo's description of the conquest of the Aztec Empire. At times, colonial practices stirred a lively debate about the ethics of colonization and the status of the indigenous peoples, as reflected for instance in Bartolomé de las Casas's Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. The first printing press in North America was established in present-day Mexico City in 1539 by publisher Juan Cromberger.
Mestizos and natives also contributed to the body of colonial literature. Authors such as El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Guaman Poma wrote accounts of the Spanish conquest that show a perspective that often contrasts with the colonizers' accounts.
During the colonial period, written culture was often in the hands of the church, the context within which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote memorable poetry and philosophical essays. Her interest in scientific thought and experiment led to professional discussions and writings with Isaac Newton. Toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, a distinctive criollo literary tradition emerged, including the first novels such as José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento (1816). The "libertadores" themselves were also often distinguished writers, such as Simón Bolívar and Andrés Bello.
The 19th century of Latin American literature The 19th century was a period of "foundational fictions" (in the words of critic Doris Sommer), novels in the Romantic or Naturalist traditions that attempted to establish a sense of national identity, and which often focused on the role and rights of the indigenous or the dichotomy of "civilization or barbarism", pioneered in Latin America by Esteban Echeverría,The Slaughteryard (2010), by Esteban Echeverría, Norman Thomas di Giovanni and Susan Ashe, trans by Juan María Gutiérrez (HarperCollins Publishers: London). who was influenced by the Parisian romantics while he lived there from 1825 to 1830. Romanticism was then taken up by other prominent literary figures, for which see, the Argentine Domingo Sarmiento's Facundo (1845). Likewise, Alberto Blest Gana's Martin Rivas (1862), widely acknowledged as the first Chilean novel, was at once a passionate love story and a national epic about revolution. Other foundation fictions include the Colombian Jorge Isaacs's María (1867), Ecuadorian Juan León Mera's Cumandá (1879), or the Brazilian Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões (1902). Such works are still the bedrocks of national canons, and usually mandatory elements of high school curricula.
Other important works of 19th century Latin American literature include regional classics, such as José Hernández's epic poem Martín Fierro (1872). The story of a poor gaucho drafted to fight a frontier war against Indians, Martín Fierro is an example of the "gauchesque", an Argentine genre of poetry centered around the lives of gauchos.
The literary movements of the 19th century in Latin America range from Neoclassicism at the beginning of the century to Romanticism in the middle of the century, to Realism and Naturalism in the final third of the century, and finally to the invention of Modernismo, a distinctly Latin American literary movement, at the end of the 19th century. The next sections discuss prominent trends in these movements more thoroughly.
Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and Emerging Literary Trends The Latin American wars of Independence that occurred in the early 19th century in Latin America led to literary themes of identity, resistance, and human rights. Writers often followed and innovated popular literary movements (such as Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism), but many were also exploring ideas such as nationalism and independence. Cultural independence spread across Latin America during this time, and writers depicted Latin American themes and locations in their works. While literature that questioned the colonial order may have emerged initially during the 17th century in Latin America, it rose in popularity in the form of resistance against Spain, the United States, and other imperialist nations in the 19th century. Latin American writers sought a Latin American identity, and this would later be closely tied with the Modernismo literary movement.
Male authors mainly dominated colonial literature, with the exception of literary greats such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, but a shift began in the 19th century that allowed for more female authors to emerge. An increase in women's education and writing brought some women writers to the forefront, including the Cuban Romantic author Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda with the novel Sab (1841), a romantic novel offering subtle critique of slavery and the treatment of women in Cuba, the Peruvian Naturalist author Clorinda Matto de Turner who wrote what is considered one of the most important novels of "indigenismo" in the 19th century: Aves sin nido (1889), and the Argentinian Romantic writer Juana Manuela Gorriti (1818–1892), who penned a variety of novels and short stories, such as La hija del mashorquero (1860) and directed a literary circle in Peru. A Naturalist trail-blazer, Peruvian Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera penned Blanca Sol (1888) to critique women's lack of practical work options in her society. Women writers of the 19th century often wrote about the inequalities in Latin America that were vestiges of colonialism such as the marginalization and oppression of Indigenous peoples, slaves, and women. Many works by women in this period challenged Latin American patriarchal societies. These prominent women writers discussed the hypocrisy of the dominant class and institutions that existed in their nascent nations and criticized the corruption of the government. Some prime examples of such works include Clorinda Matto de Turner's Indole, Herencia, and El Conspirador: autobiografia de un hombre publico.
Modernismo, the Vanguards, and Boom precursors In the late 19th century, modernismo emerged, a poetic movement whose founding text was the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío's Azul (1888). This was the first Latin American poetry movement to influence literary culture outside of the region, and was also the first truly Latin American literature, in that national differences were no longer as much of an issue and authors sought to establish Latin American connections. José Martí, for instance, though a Cuban patriot, also lived in Mexico and the United States and wrote for journals in Argentina and elsewhere. In 1900 the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó wrote what became read as a manifesto for the region's cultural awakening, Ariel. Delmira Agustini, one of the female figures of modernismo, wrote poetry that both utilized typical modernist images (such as swans) and adapted them with feminist messages and erotic themes, as critic Sylvia Molloy describes.
Though modernismo itself is often seen as aestheticist and anti-political, some poets and essayists, Martí among them but also the Peruvians Manuel González Prada and José Carlos Mariátegui, introduced compelling critiques of the contemporary social order and particularly the plight of Latin America's indigenous peoples. In this way, the early twentieth century also saw the rise of indigenismo, a trend previously popularized by Clorinda Matto de Turner, that was dedicated to representing indigenous culture and the injustices that such communities were undergoing, as for instance with the Peruvian José María Arguedas and the Mexican Rosario Castellanos.
Resistance against colonialism, a trend that emerged earlier in the 19th century, was also extremely important in modernismo. This resistance literature was promoted by prominent modernists including the aforementioned José Martí (1853–1895) and Rubén Darío (1867–1916). Martí warned readers about the imperialistic tendencies of the United States and described how Latin America should avoid allowing the United States to intervene in their affairs. A prime example of this sort of message is found in Martí's Our America, published in 1892. Darío also worked to highlight the threat of American imperialism, which can be seen in his poem To Roosevelt, as well as his other works Cake-Walk: El Baile de Moda. Many of his works were published in La Revista Moderna de Mexico, a modernist magazine of the time.
The Argentine Jorge Luis Borges invented what was almost a new genre, the philosophical short story, and would go on to become one of the most influential of all Latin American writers. At the same time, Roberto Arlt offered a very different style, closer to mass culture and popular literature, reflecting the urbanization and European immigration that was shaping the Southern Cone. Both writers were the most important emergents in an important controversy in Argentinian literature between the so-called Florida Group of Borges and other writers and artists that used to meet at the Richmond Cafe in the central Florida street of Buenos Aires vs. the Boedo Group of Roberto Arlt that used to meet at the Japanese Cafe in the most peripheral Boedo borough of the same city.
The Venezuelan Rómulo Gallegos wrote in 1929 what came to be one of the best known Latin American novels in the twentieth century, Doña Barbara. Doña Barbara is a realist novel describing the conflict between civilization and barbarism in the plainlands of South America, and is a masterpiece of criollismo. The novel became an immediate hit, being translated into over forty languages.
Notable figures in Brazil at this time include the exceptional novelist and short story writer Machado de Assis, whose both ironic view and deep psychological analysis introduced a universal scope in Brazilian prose, the modernist poets Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade (whose "Manifesto Antropófago" praised Brazilian powers of transculturation), and Carlos Drummond de Andrade.