Latin American boom: short summary

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When we speak of the Latin American Boom we are referring to a movement with editorial intention that took place in different Latin American countries during the decade of the 60s and 70s of the 20th century. It was a movement of flowering of the literature of the authors of these countries and that, although all of them were independent of each other, they have a series of characteristics and style that can be unified and understood as set.

Today there are many critics who continue to deny the existence of this "boom", however, it should be clarified that, although it was not a cultural movement, it was an editorial strategy since, from the beginning, this term was used for commercial and editorials. In a PROFESSOR we are going to discover you a summary of the Latin American boom so that you know better what this literary trend consisted of and who the main protagonists were.

Index

1. What was the Latin American boom: brief introduction
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2. Characteristics of the Latin American boom: the 6 most outstanding
3. 3 essential authors of the Latin American Boom

When we talk about the Latin American Boom we refer to a period in which there was a boom in the narrative production of Latin American authors. These writers drank from the influence of the avant-garde movements that had so influenced European culture and, now, generated a new point of view inspired by their own American reality, folklore and its socio-political context.

New currents of thought emerged in which society began to be more deeply interested in its political reality due to the Cold War. Besides, the Cuban Revolutionled by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro also served as an engine of ideological turmoil That made the people begin to become aware of their status and their great power. Let us remember that, in these decades (60 and 70), many Latin American countries.

For all this, different writers and intellectuals began to elaborate a series of novels and short stories (the predominant literary genres) who shared a very similar vision: defending their own cultures and roots but with a type of literature that experimented and, at the same time, denounced the situation in which countries they found.

There has been a lot of discussion about which is the first work that can be properly considered Boom. Some critics point out that this movement began in 1962 with "Hopscotch" by Julio Cortázar, others defend that it was in 1962 as well but with "The city and the dogs" by Vargas Llosa, etc.

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To better understand this generation of authors, below we are going to talk about the characteristics of the Latin American Boom and that, thus, you understand in a simple way what were the pillars on which many of the works written in this period.

Editorial movement

The first thing we have to keep in mind is that the American Boom was not a movement that arose spontaneously but rather It was an editorial launch that sought to relaunch and put back on the map the authors and literature produced in Latin America. For this reason, we cannot speak of generation or cultural current, but rather of a marketing product that emerged to publicize the authors of that band of the puddle.

Influence of magical realism

One of the most outstanding characteristics of this period is that a great majority of Latin American authors wrote under the influence of magical realism, a type of narrative inaugurated with "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Garcia Marquez and that it moves between the plane of reality and fantasy in equal parts. The authors began to use this type of subgenre to be able to explain what the social reality was like in their countries, a poetic and literary way of explaining both in a real and metaphorical way, what happened in their cities.

Identity literature

It is also important to note that the Latin American Boom is when it is possible to cultivate a type of literature typical of the authors of the countries belonging to Latin America. So far, the most prominent authors of the lyrics (such as, for example, Ruben Dario) they had been inspired by the European currents and had jumped on this trend. However, with the production of Boom it is achieved that American reality penetrates the stories and that both the myths, the landscapes or the traditions of each country have a hole in the pages of the books.

Experimental literature

Within this summary of the Latin American Boom, it is important to bear in mind that, as we have already said, the authors came from influenced by avant-garde literature, a type of writing that experimented to the maximum with artistic and literary expression. From avant-garde movements well-known movements such as Surrealism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Cubism, etc. arose.

Therefore, Latin American authors also wanted to experiment within the literary field and, for this, they worked with novels that, for example, were chronologically disordered, that could be read without respecting linearity of history, and so on. A clear example of this type of writing is "Hopscotch"by Cortázar that the same author offers you different ways of reading it.

Abundant use of literary devices

Continuing with the previous point, the authors wanted to experiment and "play" with language and literature. Therefore, in these works there is a great variety and combination of literary resources that allow giving a more fun air to the stories and, in addition, it is also a perfect type of technique to achieve this touch of fantasy typical of magical realism and the authors of Boom.

American Scenarios

In the same way that the authors began to include themes and traditions typical of their culture, they did the same with the settings and the different landscapes that they evoked in their works. It is for this reason that, now, in novels and stories a great variety of both urban and rural spaces appear but that they were part of the reality of the country of origin of the author. For this reason, many theorists consider that this type of literary production can also be considered as literature with regional or national identity.

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And to conclude with this summary of the Latin American Boom, we are going to mention some of the most prominent authors of this current and that they were the clear representatives of all the characteristics that we have mentioned in the section previous.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

García Márquez was the most representative author of the magical realism and his work "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was one of those most influenced to the Boom writers. In this narrative subgenre the authors found the ideal medium to be able to present their reality, their traditions and defend their hopes and dreams. The mixture of reality and fiction that is achieved with this type of writing is the best way to talk about Latin American reality.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" was the author's best known and most applauded work, in fact, it is considered a masterpiece of contemporary literature. It is located in a fictional town called Macondo and it is the ideal setting in which all the characters move: generations and generations of the same family. In addition to this work, García Márquez is the author of many other works and, all of them, are recognized by their way unique to unite reality with fantasy in a harmonious way and full of verisimilitude and magic at the same weather.

Julio Cortazar

Another of the great names of the Latin American boom was Julio Cortázar. In fact, as we have already indicated, this author is, for many critics, the one who began with the trail that was later followed by all the authors of Boom. That is, Cortázar began to break with the traditional structure of the story and the novel to present us a work that was conceived as a game: the reader could read it in an orderly way and messy, as well as containing a lot of original literary resources and nothing conventional.

This Argentine author was highly applauded for this novel but, above all, his literary career was characterized by the use of it so delicate and surprising of the genre of the story, a genre that was very abandoned by the letters and that was in a second flat. Thanks to "Hopscotch", Cortázar achieved international success due to his history of metaphysics, love and jazz that takes us to the bohemian Paris.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Another of the most representative authors of the Latin American Boom was Mario Vargas Llosa who, in addition to being a renowned personality in letters, has also been in the politics of Peru, his country of origin. This author drank from the influence of the typically European XX modernism but placed all of his works in a Latin American context.

For many critics, "The city and the Dogs" is the novel that inaugurates the Latin American Boom, a work that has won the Seix Barral Award in Spain and that places us in a military school where cadets are humiliated and treated as if they were animals. All of his novels are known for being thoughtful and personal stories in which he analyzes the tyranny of society and the repressions of the human psyche.

Other important authors of the Latin American Boom

These are only 3 authors of the Latin American Boom that are essential, however, the list is much longer and the members of this movement were many more. Here we leave you the names of the authors that are also integrated into this trend and that are required reading:

• Borges (he is considered a precursor)
• Carlos Fuentes
• Alejo Carpentier
• Ernesto Sabato
• Juan Rulfo
• Lezama Lima

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