/lit/ - Literature

I mean, there are a couple of south-american authors who are true and verified memes, you could have phrased this one a bit better.
But anyways, considering how historically the subcontinent has always been pretty much just a raw material extraction camp for Europe and the US, it's impressive how many excellent authors they have managed to come up with.

>>10982689
Davila. Pretty nice.

Isabel Allende. I should read more because they have quite a few good authors from there aparently

>>10982879
The only Allende I've read House of the Spirits, but it was great

once read Galeano, i actually want to read something else

>>10982697
hey man

>>10982689
South American writing is very much like French writing, only much better and with bigger balls.

>>10983904
What do you mean "bigger balls"?

>>10983904
what do you mean?

I read a Neruda poem and it was sappy shit

one word: irrelevance.

>>10982689
I'm from Brazil, so yes.
Ehh, our writing is decent. Sometimes I feel the impulse to dive headfirst into Franklin Cascaes's work (pic related) and become the South American Amos Tutuola, but the impulse ain't that strong.
>>10983922
I feel you, Neruda's shit. Borges is shit too, tbqh, but substantially less shit.

>>10983965
This is sick. Is he a writer or an artist. Or both?

>>10983965
>Borges is shit
You should kys, unironically.

>>10982689
Argentinian lit is the best of SA, no contest. Chile has good poets. Brazil is okay but irrelevant. The rest ranges from bad to mediocre, save individual writers here and there like Horacio Quiroga, who's from Uruguay.

>>10984083
brasil and chile are meh. argentina and colombia are the only exceptional ones

>>10982689
Paulo Coelho. I've only read The Alchemist though.

It's dogshit.

>>10984169
literally the worst SA writer, merely a cheap charlatan masquerading as a self-help book writer.

>>10984083
Who's the best writer from Argentina?

>>10984083
>Horacio Quiroga
can confirm, his life, full of chaos and death made him good at writing

>>10984210

read Borges

>>10984210
Borges.

>>10982689
My favorites are Borges, Guiamares Rosa and Neruda.

>>10984083
>>10984217

Uruguay has good writers: Quiroga &Julio Herrera y Reissig are the best

>>10983965
>Borges is shit
No not really

>>10984233
>>10984229
>>10984228
>>10984058
This has become a BORGES thread
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is one of the best things I ever read, ever

>>10984217
He's like the South American Poe.

>>10984056
Was both, been dead for a while.
>>10984058
>>10984228
>>10984229
>>10984233
>>10984236
The absolute state of taste in this board.
I get sometimes the impression that it takes a real advanced kind of mental retardation to derive any enjoyment at all from Borges's randomized metaphysical creations and weak prose. There's literally no substance to the Aleph, the whole thing simply disgustingly builds up to a single paragraph in which the author bluntly, plainly, describes seeing this, does some shitty kiddy-pool deep philosophy and then drags on to the end of it.
In his distaste for dragging on and buildups, any necessary of them in his work seems to gain a particularly distasteful condition, while Proust at his worst moves daintily from flower to flower, brick to brick.

>>10984265
Fuck off

>>10984083
>irrelevant
to whom?

For example, Vargas Llosa wrote this book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_End_of_the_World

inspired by another br book

>>10984254
Cuentos de Amor, de Locura y de Muerte is ebin (really good though not ironically i love it)

>>10984277
>to whom?
To me. This is an opinion thread.

>>10984280
Yeah! It is pretty good. I came to it because of a story titled The Artificial Hell.

>>10984274
>literally no arguments
Point one good thing about the Aleph, I'll wait.

>>10984277
>inspired by another br book
What book?

>>10984265
My favorite story of his is the one with the WWI Chinese spy who has to kill the English guy to single the code to the Germans. That one was good.

>>10984319
The Garden of the Forking Paths.

>>10984305
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Sert%C3%B5es

Onetti was the only one i've read about

>>10984265
I was also unimpressed by the Aleph, although that doesn't mean the rest of his work is shit. The way he layers his fictions in many of his stories (Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; The South; A Problem) is incredibly dense and for me fascinating to think my way through them. Functions very well as a commentary on the inherent fiction that is the nation, especially in the context of South America where all of these borders sprung up out of nowhere relatively recently.

Also i hear he's a cool guy

>>10984083
>>10984109
Chile has Bolaño. Hes the best that happened to iberoamerican literature since fuckall. He rendered all the past 50 years of literature as a footnote.

>>10984374
>anglophone opinions on hispanic literature
lol

Cortazar and Welsh were the only good thing in south america

>>10984387
name a better novel than 2666.

>>10984374
It's true, he's Chilean! I forgot about him somehow, maybe because he was ambivalent towards his country and preferred Argentine and Mexican lit. But yeah, he's definitely Chilean.

>>10984398
I'm Argentinian so I had to read Cortázar in school, the worst thing I've read in my life.

>>10984452
que pensas de peron

>>10984462
The first government was decent then it became an everlasting meme.

>>10984452
Too bad it was ruined for you, he has some pretty cool short stories.

>>10984398
>I only read books by Cortazar and Welsh
There, I translated to everyone else what you meant by that post

Kind of basic, but Cortazár and Borges.

I also think "El hombre que se convirtió en perro" by Osvaldo Dragún is really interesting.

I've only read Cortazár and Dragún in Spanish though. I've read most of Borges in both English and Spanish, and while he's a pretty obvious choice, I can't recommend him enough.

>>10984398
retard

There seems to be a sad syndrome in the Hispanic literary world where there are only a few decent writers per country. However, if one were to view everywhere from Mexico, to Argentina, to Spain, as one country, then literature in Spanish is actually fairly good. Perhaps not as well-rounded as literature in English or French, but entertaining enough.

Still, there's not a single country in el mundo español that has as varied a tradition as there is in England, France, and the United States. If I were to rank languages by literary prowess, it would go...

1. English
2. French
POWER GAP
3. three-way tie between Italian, Spanish, and German
IMMENSE POWER GAP
6. Russian
EVEN GREATER POWER GAP
7. African, Oriental, and Middle Eastern Languages

Russian literature is by far the most overrated. While a country like Spain has a rich literary tradition going back to the Middle Ages, Russia's doesn't even begin until the 19th century with Pushkin. Pathetic!

>>10984469
i love dis

What do you guys think of Arlt? He's kinda of a personal favorite, specially Los Lanzallamas

>>10984083
>Brazil is okay but irrelevant
>I don't have culture so something is irrevlevant because I personally know nothing about it

>>10984469
The first govt was good because Perón decided it was a good idea to spend all the money the country had. Why do you think the second term was shit even though it had the same policy? He ran out of money to piss away. His three terms were shit all around. Just like most of Cortázar

>>10984562
Im halfway through los lanzallamas which is a huge improvement over los siete locos. El juguete rabioso is a great book as well, for some odd reason reading it feels like watching an old black and white movie

>>10984616
It's irrelevant to me, personally. It may mean everything to you, but that's your opinion, and that was mine. Period.

>>10982689
Roberto Bolaño from Chile is essential reading.
>>10979247
>>10984500

Aside from that I've read Jorge's Luis Borges' Labyrinths and Seven Nights, the former of which is essential reading because of his influence. Alberto Manuel's With Borges is a nice little memoir about his time reading for him.

César Aira is a prolific writer with some surreal elements. He just sits in a café and writes whatever comes to mind, apparently. I donated my books to the library (excepting The Musical Brain) so others could enjoy him.

Horacio Castellanos Moya is another I've enjoyed, having only read Tyrant Memory and The Dream of My Return, best enjoyed together. Senselessness, which I've heard is his best, is currently sitting on my shelf.

Alejandro Zambra's Private Lives of Trees didn't stick with me, but I've been meaning to read this short story after bookmarking it a few days ago:
>https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6327/long-distance-alejandro-zambra

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera was a great read, but I cannot comment on the rest of his work, and it has been some time since I've read this. I actually borrowed the Javier Bardem movie the other day, which I'll probably watch this weekend.

As for poetry I've only read a lot of Neruda. I tried to find bilingual editions with facing translations so I could read aloud in the original. New Directions is good for that. Aside from him if I've read any S.A. poetry it was from the Ecco Anthology of International Poetry.

>>10984399
weak bait

>>10984398
retard

>>10984529
english literature is almost as overrated as russian; so is french. wtf is so special about english literature other than shakespeare and chaucer? wtf is so good about france?

>>10982879
You could have chosen anyone and you choose the one at best mediocre chilean escribidora.

>>10984769
>wtf is so special about english literature other than shakespeare and chaucer? wtf is so good about france?
Don't be like this.

>>10984831
are you unable to answer? i honestly don't know what's so special about them

>>10984769
Literature in English and French is far more varied than that in Spanish. There are great philosophers, playwrights, novelists with a global reach and fame to match in both languages.

Britain alone has had vastly influential philosophers that have influenced modern consciousness, such as John Locke, Adam Smith, etc., not to mention Shakespeare's immense influence. Then there are all the great 19th century novelists such as Austen, Dickens, Hardy, Eliot, etc. Then, hopping across the pond, has there been a more influential poet since Walt Whitman on modern poetry? Moby-Dick also was basically the first modernist novel, having come virtually out of nowhere.

Even little Ireland could give plenty of Spanish countries a run for their money!

As for France, well, they're the heart of Europe really. You have a grand poetic tradition beginning in the Middle Ages. The realist novel was pioneered by the French. Symbolism planted the seeds for Modernism. Madame Bovary had a far greater impact than Don Quixote on the direction of the novel and the philosophy of composition. Where would we be today without Descartes?

On the other hand, for most people outside of the Hispanic world, there are only two novelists: Cervantes and Garcia Marquez. There are a handful of OK poets such as Vallejo, Neruda, and Paz, however, they are rather mediocre compared to their contemporaries in the US, England, and France. I would actually go so far as to say Don Quixote's influence on the novel is a bit exaggerated considering there were plenty of lengthy prose narratives in England that had a more immediate influence in the development of the novel in England such as Pilgrim's Progress. Also, there is not a single philosopher from Spain who ranks with names such as Locke, Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Spain and her former colonies have all played their part in the West, just not as greatly one in letters. I love Spanish painting, the Spanish mystics, the fact that Spain played such a great role in civilizing the world, and so on. It's just that, when I reach for a new book to read, it's more likely to be American, English, or French. I like to read the classics, especially 19th century novels, and there's hardly anything that fits that criteria for me from Spain or her former colonies.

>>10984823
>escribidora

>>10984866
>has to speak on literature
>namedrops philosophers, economists and people with 0 weight outside the anglosphere
>madame bovary more influential than don quixote
>I only know Cervantes and Garcia Márquez

oh man, this fucking guy

>>10984900
>greentexting an argument

>>10984874
Not him, but that was intentional. Bolaño called her "escribidora" instead of "escritora", to mean she's a bad writer. Sorta like saying someone is a "writist".

>>10984933
my bad then, that's hilarious

>>10984853
I'm a Spanish speaker, man. And while British lit is not my cup of tea, France has one of the richest body of lit ever. You have to be mentally retarded to say Englsh and French lit have nothing to offer.

>>10982856
Gomez Davila?

>>10984900
based

>>10984866
cringe

>>10984954
yo sé q los franchutes tienen buena literatura, de hecho diría q la mejor despues de españa. sólo digo q me parece sobrevalorada, o, ¿q me falta? puedo leer francés así recomiendame algo

>>10984529
Your argument against Russian literature could be used against German, too. German literature barely mattered before the end of the 18th century, just a few years before Pushkin.

Regarding the Anglo-French couple, I would say French literature is more varied, while English literature has better top authors. For example, not one French poet can approach Shakespeare or maybe even Milton, but French literature has 15 or 20 flavors of poetry that don't even exist in English, going from Racine to Rimbaud.

>>10985034
English poetry is so... dull and solemn (at least 19th and eary 20th century). I'm sure it's not all like that but the ones I've read feel very academic and devoid of that perverted flavor French poetry has.

>>10984866
Here, the fault lies in your general ignorance of Spanish literature, your focus on 19th century novels, and the way you tie literary achievement to the current political and cultural clout (what you call "influence").

>>10985044
But at least English poetry always feels pure and genuine. Meanwhile, the rules of French poetry are so incredibly restrictive that the even most agile poets can feel limited and contrived.

Even with someone as richly gifted as Hugo, too much energy is spent in demonstrating how he can "beat the rules" and move freely in the tight iron armor that is the French verse, instead of focusing on poetry itself. Of course, the enjoyment of seeing how boldly (or delicately) the poet overcomes the formal rules disappears entirely in translation, leaving an inferior result compared to the English poet who didn't even care about rhyming in the first place.

>>10985044
Also, the perverted flavor to which you are alluding is the invention of a few decadent 19th century poets (Baudelaire, Rimbaud...) and their successors. It is not representative of French poetry overall, and completely absent in the works of major French poets such as La Fontaine, Hugo, Corneille, Villon, Ronsard, etc.

>>10984529
>US
>tradition

>>10984529
>African, Oriental, and Middle Eastern Languages
t. pleb who isn't privy to Chinese and Japanese /lit/

>>10984866
>Spain and her former colonies have all played their part in the West

I kek everytime I see anglos praising Borges and saying he is the only worthy writer from SA. At the same time they praise Borges 98% of them are extremely prejudiced against SA literature in general, and in 99% of cases they haven't read 2 SAmerican authors besides Borges, and in 0.1% of cases they can read in the original language.

Its like an Anglo agreement that its fine to like Borges but God forbid reading another SA author.
That said, nothing against Borges or liking his literature.

>>10982689
Some lesser known ones:

Mario Benedetti - Springtime in a Broken Mirror
Miguel Angel Asturias - Men of Maize
Mario Levrero - Involuntary Trilogy
Alejandra Pizarnick - Complete Poetry
Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

What did Borges mean by this?

This book really affected me.
But my taste is different, I'm more interested in the natives and diaries, military history, biographies, etc.

It's not strictly South America, but last year I've read book by Fuentes, Terro Nostra. It blew my mid.

>>10986753
He means his intelligence is superior.

>>10986881
Yeah, i'ts from North America but I think that's probably the only maximalist novel from LatAm besides 2666. I can't think of any other.

>>10987009
Los Sorias.

>>10987009
paradiso? bomarzo? palinuro de mexico? la consagracion de la primavera? cronica de la intervencion? rayuela?

uruguay has good writers like Benedetti and Galeano, Ibarbourou stories were pretty good too

>>10987029
Didn't know about that one, it looks interesting. Are you Argentine? Can you give me a sort of list with the best Argentine novels? It's an undiscovered territory for me, a few weeks ago I've heard about this other novel called Adán Buenosayres.

>>10987050
Good to know!

BRs, can you tell me honestly how is Guimaraes Rosa rated? I hear comparisons with Joyce, but I can't tell if it's just hyperbolic national pride.

Machado de Assis is pretty good.

I really enjoyed The Feast of the Goat. Not sure where it fits though. South American writer, writing about a North American dictator.

>>10987140
That book recently popped up on my radar, too. Care to give a little write up, expand on your thoughts?

>>10987109
>I can't tell if it's just hyperbolic national pride.
It is just hyperbolic national pride.

>>10987140
It does fit, I think. As long as the writer is from SA.

>>10987109
He's nowhere near Joyce.

>>10987147
I think the main reason is I enjoyed it was the depiction of Trujillo. In some ways he is a stereotypical brute and tyrant who self destructs through his own pride and self indulgence. Yet at other times he seems to be a master of psychologically keeping his subordinates cowed but capable of extreme violence to do his bidding.

Also the psychology of one of the conspirators who somehow manages to do EVERYTHING wrong in the wake of the coup is also fascinating in a perverse way. Like watching somebody walking deeper and deeper into quicksand.

>>10985209
>Villon
>not perverted
>Hugo
>on the same level as Villon and Corneille

>>10987009
Quarup

>>10987109
He is good, and there's nothing hyperbolic, no one is saying he is AS GOOD as Joyce (I think it's besides the point to compare both anyways), just that his work has similar techniques and composition to that of Joyce. The same thing happens with Clarice / Woolf, Graciliano / Hemmingway, etc.

>>10987224
Villon as a man may have been perverted, but his poetry isn't.

What do you mean about Hugo?

>>10987234
I'm embarassed now because even though I'm well aware of the differences between both men and their work and know they have nothing alike, I still confused Villon and Rabelais.
I don't like Hugo due to his pomp and circunstance.

>>10987074
Not an Argie but respect their brand of lit.

Un Kilo de Oro by Rodolfo Walsh, Los Siete Locos by Roberto Arlt, Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto. Those are some classics I've read, I'm sure there are more but I'm not familiar with them.

>>10987250
I don't like Hugo too much either, but he's way above Corneille (or almost anyone else) in terms of width, variety, agility, subtlety, invention, world building, etc.

Corneille excels at only one thing, which is crafting speech full of grandeur and courage; and even there Hugo can be almost as good.

>>10987468
World building in poetry? How does that work?

>>10987537
Both Corneille and Hugo were playwrights writing in verse (among other things).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an excellent author from Colombia. Personally, I feel Love In The Time Of Cholera is a masterpiece.

The imaginary man
lived in an imaginary house
in the midst of imaginary trees
on the bank of an imaginary river

From walls which are imaginary
hang ancient imaginary framed paintings
irreparable imaginary fissures
which recall imaginary events
which took place in imaginary worlds
in imaginary places and times

Every imaginary afternoon
he goes up imaginary staircases
and leans over the imaginary balcony
to survey the imaginary landscape
which is made up of an imaginary valley
surrounded by imaginary hills

Imaginary shadows
approach from an imaginary path
singing imaginary songs
to the demise of the imaginary sun

And during imaginary moonlit nights
dreams with an imaginary woman
who offered to him (toasting) her imaginary love
once again he felt this same pain
the very same imaginary pleasure
and once again began to beat
the heart of the imaginary man

>>10988703
Good.

>>10988703
Nicanor Parra. Nice.

>>10988703
Definitely one of my favorites

Whats the spanish hosted site where you can download books in spanish usually

>>10984374

What’s up with this Bolaño trend? Why suddenly so many people started to defend him as if in some sort of contest, ussualy by also attacking and discrediting other authors?

These people even parrot Bolaños opinions on other writers and hold them as scripture.

All this wave started some months ago here on /lit/. I can’t name the epicenter of it.

>>10984866
>neruda
>vallejo
>ok, mediocre

why don't you get your english head out of your ass

p.s. I'm not even a spic

>>10989197
anagrama's marketing department worked really hard.

>>10982689
Quiroga, Storni, Silvina and Victoria Ocampo, Allende, Sábato, Borges

>>10989267
What marketing?

Mario Bellatin is the best living author in Latin America.

>>10982689
Argentina and Uruguay are excellent, the rest is meh they have a few good authors but at least is not Mexican garbage

>>10989197
Personally I'm a fan of Bolaño, but I'm not so extreme about it as you're suggesting others are, and I don't parrot his opinions (can't really say I've read too much of his non-fiction or interviews).

This is me, anon >>10984679
I'd say my Aira and Castellanos Moya phases were just as valuable to me, though I've enjoyed Bolaño just a tad more. If you have any recs for me I'd appreciate it.

>>10989489
> Mexican garbage
Argentina and Mexico have the best Latin American literature of all Latin America. Even Bolaño thought so, he called Mexico "my literary land by excellence" and Argentina having a body of literature "so rich, the biggest of the Southern Cone".

>>10984265
This desu senpai

>>10989596
Can you answer my question in the Bolaño thread? :)

>>10989988
Done.

>>10987109
> For its profoundly philosophical themes, the critic Antonio Candido described the books as a "metaphysical novel". It is often considered to be the Brazilian equivalent of James Joyce's Ulysses.[2][3][4] In a 2002 poll by the Bokklubben World Library, "Grande Sertão: Veredas" was named among the best 100 books of all time.[5]

Bump

>>10984210
Personally, I like Sábato way more than Borges. Sábato's characters have an incommensurate depth and are extremely sincere. I like Borges, but after reading so many of his works it becomes a bit repetitive, there's plot depth but the characters are almost anonymous. Also Sábato had pretty much the best, most interesting life I've ever heard of; he got a doctorate in maths and physics, studied philosophy in his own free time, was heavily involved in a communist party(members of which almost kill him, forcing him to move to France and sleep in the streets for months). At a later point in his life he suddenly decided to become a writer.

Also, his prose if fucking astonishing. Read him in spanish if you can, because his style is kind of untranslatable imo.

>>10994142
>Sábato
based anon, you are right on the mark. Sábato's prose just flows so easly on me it's fantastic. His essays are great too, you get the melancholic hopefull feel of his later years, of a man that saw his own people massacred by their goverment and the very infight of argentineans
Not trying to overhype though, but along Borges and Cortazar he is a must