Gabriel García Márquez and the Latin American Boom
Spanish American Novel in the Twentieth Century
Early Twentieth Century
Despite the difficulties in summarizing a century of Spanish American narrative, a traditional division exists in many manuals and studies. We can identify three major stages:
- The narrative of the early century, until 1940.
- The new novel, also known as magic realism, between 1940 and 1960.
- The boom of the sixties and seventies.
During the first decades of the twentieth century, a distinctly realistic literature dominated, with specific variants:
- The Earth Novel: Emphasized the pampas or jungle.
- The Indian Novel: Occurring in Andean countries (Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru), emphasizing the role of various Indian tribes.
Renewal After the 1940s: Magical Realism
From 1940 onward, changes appeared in Latin American narrative forms and techniques. A gradual abandonment of traditional realist literature emerged, incorporating avant-garde elements. This renewal stemmed from two aspects:
- The incorporation of fantastic themes and stories.
- The influence of European and American novels.
The true originality of this stage is magical realism, incorporating mythical elements from various Latin American cultures, Hispanic, and even including countries like Brazil, Jamaica, and Haiti. It embraces the mysterious, the wonderful, and the inexplicable. Between 1940 and 1960, writers like Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones), Juan Carlos Onetti (La vida breve), and Juan Rulfo (Pedro Páramo) brought luster to American literature.
The Boom of the Spanish American Narrative
During the decades of the sixties and seventies, Latin American literature experienced a huge boom period came to be known as the boom of Latin American narrative. A fact that is explained by two factors extra-literary character: on the one hand, the editorial promotion that ran from countries like Spain, Argentina and Mexico, and, secondly, the influence of the Cuban revolution, since 1959, from Cuba since many writers are invited to visit the island and promoted the spread of many young literary writers, including some as famous as Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez, considered the leading writers the boom fiction. Thanks to these and many other writers, Latin America became a real power literaria.Por Moreover, the subsequent implementation of military dictatorships in many Latin American countries made many of these writers were forced into exile in Europe, which contributed both to knowledge of their people and works as the revaluation of social and political component of many of them, which was perceptible a critique of American dictatorships, which came in handy to all those in countries like Spain faced against installed dictatorships in power.Therefore contributed greatly to the internationalization boom writers and works, especially following some Spanish publishers publish many of these works and the creation of the Biblioteca Breve Prize novel, sponsored by the Spanish publisher Seix Barral.Así as we can say that the boom in Latin American narrative can not be understood if we separate the important editorial support conducted in several countries, including Spain. This allowed the interest of a large and surprise readers, attracted by the novelty of Spanish American novelists and some new techniques that, in short, could be summarized as follows:
1-mix real and fantastical elements (this is called magical realism) 2-mixture of elements from avant-garde European and native American literature. 3-Appearance of new issues, including those related to social issues, with nature, with the mythical elements with the mysterious and Breaking sobrenatural.4-linear narrative, chronological, and the emergence of techniques such as narrative retrospection , also known as analepsis and flash-back, and ahead narrative, also called prolepsis.5 Presence of the appearance of several narrators and technical perspectives (different views on the same facts) 6-Using interior monologue, also called flow of conciencia.7-Expanding and enriching the lexicon, which in some cases has come to be a real literary baroque.
Some representatives of the boom and its most representative works:
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru): The City and the Dogs (1963), La casa verde (1965), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), Captain Pantoja and the Special (1973). Carlos Fuentes (Mexico): The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962). Julio Cortazar (Argentina), Hopscotch (1963). Ernesto Sabato (Argentina): On Heroes and Tombs (1961). Manuel Mujica Lainez (Argentina): Bomarzo (1962). José Donoso (Chile): The Obscene Bird pm (1970). Alejo Carpentier (Cuba): The Age of Enlightenment (1962). Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba): Three Trapped Tigers (1967). Juan Carlos Onetti (Uruguay): The yard (1961), Juntacadáveres (1965). Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay): Son of Man (1960).
Finally, we conclude that the end of the boom of Latin American narrative was very evident from the eighties, and since then we can talk about writers who succeed in a more isolated.
2. GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE SPANISH AMERICAN NARRATIVE
It is undeniable that, over any other, one of the highest profile writers of the boom, along with the recently Nobel Literature Prize Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez is. Son of a radio operator, was born in Aracataca (Colombia). Her maternal grandmother was initiated in the oral culture of Colombia (legends, folklore, linguistic regionalism …). In 1940 he moved to Bogotá to study law, but soon began to publish stories in the press and was attracted to journalism. Thus, in the newspaper “El Espectador” published reports, film reviews, stories, etc. Author is a very controversial policy of broad sectors of society, since from the 90 maintains a steadfast friendship with Fidel Castro and also with former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez. He has lived in Barcelona. In 1975 he moved to Mexico, being expelled from Bogota. In 1982 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although he began writing at age 20, the work that launched him to worldwide success was written when he was 40 years (1967). These Hundred Years of Solitude, a novel in which Vargas Llosa described as the Amadis of Gaul of America.In addition, the Peruvian writer has been said that One Hundred Years of Solitude has had much impact on American literature and in its day was Don Quixote. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a mythical site which, as often happens in many others, says the foundation of a city (Macondo), a garden of Eden that it becomes a hell. In the process of degradation suffered by the city has been the ruin of the virginal American world, surrounded by a magical atmosphere that paradoxically brings out the realism of the work. This novel is considered, therefore, one of the best examples of realism mágico.Anteriormente had published Litter (1955), The Colonel no one writes (1962), Big Mama’s Funeral (1962) and In Evil Hour (1963), which represents what might qualify as your short fiction. These works will follow many others, beyond the boom, among which are: The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), a most beautiful of his novels, and carefully analyze from different perspectives, The General in His Labyrinth (1989), Strange Pilgrims (1992), Of Love and Other Demons (1994), News of a Kidnapping (1996), fictionalized story about in the Colombian narco-terrorism, the autobiography Living to Tell (2002) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004). Among other honors, in 1981, the French government awarded him the medal of the Legion of Honor “in the rank of Grand Commander, and finally, in 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and was formally invited by the Colombian government to return to their country.