World Canonical Texts
I just finished reading Modern Latin American Literature: A Very Short Introduction, by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, who was the editor of The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature in 3 Volumes. While he acknowledges Brazilian literature in one paragraphy, the whole book is really about Spanish-language literature from 19th century onwards.
Below is just a pasting of key authors / works mentioned:
| Simon Bolivar (1783-1830): "La carta de Jamaica" (The Letter from Jamaica, 1815) |
| Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi (1776-1827): El periquillo sarniento (The Itching Parrot, 1816) |
| Jose Maria Heredia (1803-39): Niagara (1824) |
| Andres Bello (1781-1865): "Alocucion a la poesia" (An Address to Poetry, 1823); "Ala agricultura de la zon torrida" (Agriculture in the Torrid Zone, 1826) |
| Jose Joaquin Olmedo (1790-1847): "La victoria de Junin: Canto a Boliva" (The victory at Junin: A Song to Bolivar, 1826) |
| Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda (1814-73): "Al partir" (On my departure, 1836); "A el" (For him); "A la poesia" (To Poetry); Sab (1841); El artista barquero (The Artist Boatman, 1861) |
| Esteban Echeverria (1805-51): "La cautiva" (The Captive Woman, in Las rimas of 1837); "El matadero" (The Slaughterhouse, 1838) |
| Anselmo Suarez y Romero (1818-1878): Francisco o las delicias del campo (Francisco or The Delights of the Countryside, 1838) |
| Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-88): Civilizacion y barbarie: vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga (The Life of Facundo Quiroga: Civilization and Barbarism, 1845) (eventually president of Argentina) |
| Jose Maria Torres Caicedo (1830-89): Ensayos biograficos y de critica literia sobre los principales publicistas, historiadores, poetas y literatos de America Latina (Biographcial and Critical Essays on the Chief Authors, Historians, Poets, and Men of Letters from Latin America) |
| Diego Barros Arana (1830-1907): published Puren indomito (Indomitable Puren) by Captan Fernando Alvarez de Toledo |
| Juan Maria Gutierrez (1809-78): America poetica |
| Jose Marmol (1817-71): Amalia (1851-55) |
| Jorge Isaacs (1837-95): Maria (1867) |
| Ricardo Palma (1872-1910): tradiciones en salsa verde (1872-91) |
| Jose Hernandez (1834-86): El Gaucho Martin Fierro (1872); La vuetta ae Martin Fierro (The Return of Martin Fierro, 1879) |
| Cirilo Villaverde (1812-94): Cecilia Valdes o la Loma del Angel (Cecilia Valdes or El Angel Hill, 1882) |
| Ruben Dario (1867-1916): Azul … (1888); "Sonatina"; Cantos de vida y esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope, 1905); "A Roosevelt"; "Lo fatal" (What is Fatal) |
| Corinda Matto de Turner (1854-1909): Aves sin nido (Birds Without Nests, 1889) |
| Jose Marti (1853-95): Ismaelillo (1882); Versos sencillos (1891); Versos libres (posthumous); "Amor de ciudad grande" (Love in the City); "Nuestra America" (Our America, 1891) |
| Julian del Casal (1863-93): Nieve (Snow, 1892); Bustos y rimas (Busts and Rhymes, 1893) |
| Jose Asuncion Silva (1865-96): "Norturno" |
| Juana Borrero (1877-96) |
| Jose Enrique Rodo (1872-1917): "Ariel" (1900) |
| Amado Nervo (1870-1919): "La amada inmovil" (The Still Beloved) |
| Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938): El payador (The Minstrel, 1916); Las montanas de oro (Golden Mountains, 1897); Los crepusculos del jardin (Gardin Twilights, 1905); "El solteron"(The Bachelor); Lunario sentimental (1909) |
| Julio Herrera y Reissig (1875-1910): La Torre de las Esfinges (The Sphinxes' Tower, 1909); Los peregrinos de piedra (The Stone Pilgrims, 1910) |
| Porfirio Barba Jacob (Miguel Angel Osorio,1880-1942) |
| Delmira Agustini (1886-1914): Los calices vacios (The Empty Chalices, 1913) |
| Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, 1889-1957): Sonetos de la muerte (Death Sonnets, 1914); Desolacion (Desolation, 1922); Ternura (Tenderness, 1924); Tala (Felling, 1938) |
| Enrique Gonzalez Martinez (1871-1952): Los senderos ocultos (The Hidden Paths, 1915) |
| Mariano Azuela (1873-192): Los de abajo (The Underdogs, 1915) |
| Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937): "Decalogue of the Perfect Short Story Writer" (1917); Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte (Stories about Love, Madness, and Death, 1917); Cuentos de la selva (Jungle Stories, 1918) |
| Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938): Los heraldos negros (Black Heralds, 1918); Trilce (1922); Poemas humanos (Human Poems, posthumous, includes Espana, aparta de mi este caliz (Spain, Take Away This Chalice)) |
| Pedro Henriquz Urena |
| Jose Carlos Mariategui |
| Samuel Ramos |
| Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938): "I am going to sleep" |
| Jose Eustasio Rivera (1888-1928): La voragine(The Vortex, 1924) |
| Juana de Ibarbourou (Juanita Fernandez Morales, 1895-1979) |
| Ricardo Guiraldes (1886-1927): Don Segundo Sombra (1926) |
| Martin Luis Guzman (1887-1986): El aguila y la serpiente (The Eagle and the Serpent, 1928); La sombra del caudillo (The Caudillo's Shadow, 1929) |
| Romuo Gallegos (1884-1969): Dona Barbara (1929) (president of Venezuela 1948) |
| Nicolas Guillen (1902-1989): Motivos de son (Song Motifs, 1930); Songoro cosongo (1931); West Indies Ltd. (1934); Cantos para soldados y sones para turistas (Songs for Soldiers and sones for Tourists, 1937); Espana:poema en cuatro angustias y una esperanza (Spain: a Poem in Four Anguishes and One Hope, 1937) |
| Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948): "Ars poetica"; Altazor(1931) |
| Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): Ficciones (1944); El Aleph (1949) |
| Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974): El senor presidente (1946); Leyendas de Gautemala (Legends of Guatemala, 1930); Hombres de maiz (Men of Maie) |
| Alejo Carpentier (1904-80): Ecue-Yamba-O!(Lord,Praised be Thou); El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of This World, 1949); Guerra del tiempo (War of Time, 1958)；Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps, 1953); El acoso (Manhunt, 1956); El siglo de las luces (The century of lights, 1962) |
| Pablo Neruda (1904-1973): Crepusculario (1923); Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 1924); Residencia en la tierra (Residence on Earth, 1933); Espana en el corazon (Spain in the Hart, 1937)； Canto general de Chile（General Song of Chile,1943); republished as Canto general(1950, which includes Alturas de Macchu Picchu (The Heights of Macchu Picchu of 1944) ); Los versos del capitan (The Captain's Verses, 1952); Odas elementales (Elementary Odes, Vol 1 of 3, 1954）; Cancion de gesta (Epic Song, 1959); Cantos ceremoniales (Ceremonial Songs); Memorial de Isla Negra (Isla Negra Memorial) |
| Octavio Paz (1914-98): No pasaran!(They Shall not Pass! 1936); El laberinto de la soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950); El arco y la lira (The Bow and the Lyre, 1956); Los hijos del limo (Children of the Mire, 1974); Libertad bajo palabra (Freedom under Parole, 1949); Piedra de sol (Sunstone); Homenaje y profanacion (Homage and desecrations, 1960，rewrote "Constant Love beyond Death" of Quevedo) |
| Nicanor Parra (1914-): "Soliloquio del individuo" (Soliloquy of the Individual); Poemas y antipoemas (Poems and Antipoems, 1954) |
| Juan Rulfo (1918-86): Pedro Parama (1955); El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain, 1953) |
| Jose Donoso (1924-96): Coronacion (Coronation, 1957)；El lugar sin limites (Hell Has No Limits, 1967); El obsceno pajaro de la noch (The Obscene Bird of Night, 1970); Historia personl del Boom (The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History, 1977) |
| Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-94): El astillero (The Shipyard, 1961); La vida vreve (A Brief Life, 1959) |
| Carlos Fuentes (1928-): La muerte de of Artemio Cruz (The Death of Artemio Cruz, 1962); Terra Nostra (1975), Cambio de piel (A Change of Skin, 1967); Zona sagrada (Holy Place, 1967); Cumpleanos (Birthday, 1969) |
| Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-): La ciudad y los perro(The city and the dogs, 1962); La casa verde (The Green House, 1965); La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the Goat, 2000); La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World, 1981) |
| Julio Cortazar (1914-84): Rayuela (Hopscotch, 1963); Bestiario (Bestiary, 1951); Final del juego (End of the Game, 1956); Las armas secretas (Secret Weapons) |
| Gonzalo Rojas (1917-2011): Contra la muerte (Against Death, 1964);"Al silencio" (To Silence) |
| Jose Lezama Lima (1910-76): Muerte de Narciso (Death of Narcissus); Fragmentos a su iman (Magnet's Shards, 1977); Paradiso (novel, 1966); "La expresion " (Expression, 1957) |
| Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005): Tres tristes tigres (Three Trapped Tigers, 1966) |
| Reinaldo Arenas (1943-90): El mundo alucinante (Hallucinations, 1966); Antes que anochezca (Before Night Falls, 1992) |
| Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1928-): La hojarasca (The LeafStorm, 1955); La mala hora (In Evil Hour, 1962); El coronel no tiene le escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel, 1961); Cien anos de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967); El otono del patriarca (The Autumn of the Patriarch, 1975); Cronica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1981); El amor en lo tiempos del colera (Love in the Time of Cholera, 1985)；El general en su laberinto (The General and His Labyrinth, 1989); Del amor yotros demonios (Of Love and Other Demons, 1994)；Noticia de un secuestro (News of a Kidnapping, 1996); Memoria de mis putas tristes (Memories of My Melanchly Whores, 2004) |
| Heberto Padilla: Fuera del juego (Out of the Game, 1967) |
| Eduardo Mallea |
| Ernesto Sabato |
| Severo Sarduy (1937-93): De donde son los cantantes (From Cuba with a Song, 1967); Maitreya (1978) |
| Manuel Puig (1932-80): La traicion de Rita Hayworth (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, 1968); El beso de la mujer arana (The Kiss of the Spiderwoman) |
| Auguto Roa Bastos (1917-2005): Yo el Supremo (I the Supreme, 1974) |
| Luisa Valenzuela (1938-): Cambio de armas (Change of Guard, 1982); Cola de lagartija (The Lizard's Tail, 1983) |
| Isabel Allende (1942-): La casa de los espiritus (The House of Spirits, 1985) |
| Fernando Vallejo (1942-): La virgen de los sicarios (The Lady of the Assassins, 1994) |
| Roberto Balano (1953-2003): Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives, 1998); Nocturno de Chile (Chile nocturne, 2000) |
| Jorge Volpi (1968-): El fin de la locura (End of Madness, 2003); En busca de Klingsor (In Search of Klingsor, 1999) |
| Edmundo Paz Soldan (1967-): El delirio de Turing (Turing's Obsession, 2003) |
| Rafael Rojas (1965-): Tumbas sin sosiego (Graves without Rest, 2006) |
| Antonio Jose Ponte (1964-): La fiesta vigilada (The Guarded Fiesta, 2007) |
What is interested is the order of authors mentioned in this booklet - I ordered them by their country of birth, in descending order. (Note that many authors were born in one country and worked in a different one (sometimes in Europe, and even in India!). Qualifications aside:
| Cuba |
| Argentina |
| Mexico |
| Chile |
| Columbia |
| Peru |
| Uruguay |
| Venezuela |
| Nicaragua |
| Guatemala |
| Paraguay |
| Dominican Republic |
| Ecuador |
The fact that Cuba is at the top is still very surprising given the relative population. But Cuba was important in 1898, and also as trigger for the Boom in the 1960s.
The more important authors:
Born 1780s (transition from colonial to modern): Andres Bello
Born 1810s: Sarmiento (Facundo)
Born 1830s: Jose Hernandez (Martin Fierro)
Born 1860s: Dario (Azul ...)
Born 1870s: Rodo (Ariel); Lugones
Born 1890s: Vallejo (Los heraldos negros), Huidobro (Altazor); Borges (Ficciones)
Born 1900s: Carpentier (El reino de este mundo); Neruda (Canto general)
Born 1910s: Paz (El labrinto de la soledad), Cortazar (Rayuela); Jose Lezama Lima (Paradiso)
Born 1920s: Fuentes; Marquez (Cien anos de soledad)
Born 1930s: Mario Vargas Llosa
This is a list of 17 authors.
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