Latin American Literature and Theater: 1900s Trends
The American Novel in the Twentieth Century
In the first thirty years of the twentieth century, a realistic novel dominated, introducing the American countryside as part of a grand and wild nature.
From the forties, a major renovation of the novel took place that influenced the new narrative techniques: the interior monologue, the jumps in time, or a combination of different viewpoints. Realism of the previous era was broken, and different trends emerged, the best known of which is magical realism, a blend of fantasy and reality found in many novels.
Notable works from this period include:
- Mr. President, by Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974)
- The Cathedral, by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980)
- Pedro Paramo, by Mexican Juan Rulfo (1918-1986), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century
The Boom of Latin American Fiction in the 1960s
The novel of the 1960s is known as the “boom” of Latin American fiction, a term that refers to its major international broadcasts and editorial success. New novelists continued in line with the innovations of the previous stage and enriched the novel with new resources. Mostly, the writers kept the traits of magical realism. Several high-quality novels were published, reaching spectacular success:
- The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) by Carlos Fuentes
- Hopscotch (1963) by Julio Cortazar
- The City and the Dogs (1962) and Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Paradiso (1966) by José Lezama Lima
- Three Trapped Tigers (1967) by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez
Post-Boom Latin American Narrative
After the boom, Latin American narrative production continued with new figures such as:
- Peru’s Alfredo Bryce Echenique (1939)
- Argentina’s Ricardo Piglia (1947)
- Chilean Isabel Allende (1942) and Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003)
- Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990)
- Mexico’s Ángeles Mastretta (1949)
Theater in the 1950s and 1960s
In this period, three types of theater thrived:
Existential Drama: This minority theater starred characters tormented by anguish, anxiety, isolation, and loneliness. In 1949, Antonio Buero Vallejo started this trend with the release of History of a Staircase. Alfonso Sastre expressed similar problems in Death Squad, which premiered in 1953.
Comic Theater: This genre also offered a disillusioned view of life, with characters who are forced to succumb to pressure from social convention. These plays, with a delirious mood, made the public laugh, eager for fun and willing to forget the difficulties of everyday life. Enrique Jardiel Poncela and Miguel Mihura are the most important authors.
Social Criticism Theater: In the mid-1950s, social criticism theater emerged. This type of theater showed injustice, and its players denounced the lack of freedom. A new audience of students and intellectuals attended these performances. To circumvent censorship, authors often placed their works at other times in the history of Spain and thus criticized the present through the past.
Among the most prominent authors, the following should be noted:
- Alfonso Sastre, who premiered Death in the Neighborhood in 1955
- Lauro Olmo, whose most representative work is The Shirt, 1962
- Antonio Buero Vallejo, who wrote historical dramas such as A Dreamer for a Village (1958) and Las Meninas (1960)
New Narrative Techniques
Interior Monologue: A narrative technique in which a character expresses, in the first person and directly, their thoughts, next to the unconscious, in a disorganized and somewhat incoherent manner.
Combination of Several Points of View: During the development of the story, the narrator shifts, and the action is alternately seen from the point of view of someone outside the events or of different characters in the story.