Ch 7 Introduction to the Boom

Introduction

The Boom represented the internationa1 recognition, during the 1960s, of the superb quality of Latin American fiction. The rise Of Borges and modernist fiction since the l940s had laid the ground-work for this acknowledgment of the outstanding writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Carlos Fuentes. Mario Vargas Llosa, and JuliO Cortazar. Their work along with the writing of Jose Donoso, Jorge Amado, Joao Guimaras Rosa, Salvador Garmendia, and others, produced a body of literature that many scholars consider without comparison in the Spanish language since Spain's Golden Age in the seventeenth century.

For the first thee, Latin American writers enjoyed the privilege of dedicating themselves full time to writing. Indeed, by the late 1960S, most of the writers of the Boom were living in Europe and writing full time. Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa were living in Barce-lona, often visited there by Cortazar and Fuentes. Now Latin Amrican writers were true Professionals; some of them were even enjoying the lifestyle of jet-setters.

The Boom of the Latin American novel in the 1960s was a result of the conflunce of numerous institutions, individuals, and circumstances, among them the Cuban Revolution, Harper and Row publishers in the United States, the Spanish literary agent Carmen Bal-cells, the Spanish publishing firm Seix Barral, the rise of international Latin Americanism as an academic discipline, the publication of the magazine Mundo Nuevo in Paris, and the appearance of a brilliant translator, Gregory Rabassa. As Jose Donoso has documented in his Historia Personal del Boom, Fuentes was central to making all these factors come together. Most of the writers of the Boom had been to literary soirees as guests at the Fuentes home in Mexico City including Vargas Llosa and Donoso himself. The latter, in fact, lived and wrote in a bungalow in Fuentes's backyard for three years in the early 1960s.

Fuentes followed closely and supported the writing of one of the major novels of the Boom, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude. Garcia Marquez liked to chat about his work when it was in progress, and he found Fuentes the idea1 friend while he was writing the novel in l965 and l966 and joining in Fuentes's Sun-day soirees. Fuentes was also one of the few individuals to read the manuscript of One Hundred Years of Solitude before its publication, prompting him to write an article of considerable impact in the principal Spanish-language literary organ of the Boom, Mundo Nuevo.

The Rise of the Boom

During the 1960s, an unprecedented conjunction of forces occurred in Latin Amrican literature. At the outset of the decade, the Cuban Revo1ution became a rallying point for most Latin American intellectuals, and the writers of the Boom supported revolutionary ideals in the early l960s. In fact, when Castro arrived triumphantly in Havana in January of 1960, Carlos Fuentes was waiting for him to offer his congratulations and support. Garcia Marquez was also an early any of the revolution, and soon thereafter Vargas LlOsa and Cortazar offered their solidarity Castro successfully made Havana a center of cultural activity for Latin American intellectuals during the 1960s, with the full support of the rising stars of the Boom. Each of them made numerous trips to Havana, and Garcia, Marquez continued his close contact with the island into the 1990s.

The American publishing firm of Harper and Row was important to the Boom because it published the major novels of these writers. For the first time, the most gifted novelists of Latin America had animate outlet and a broad readership in the United States. The Modernist strategies these writers used, as well as the magic realism that virtually became the trademark of Latin American writing, appealed to a broad audience in the United States; and writers from Latin America with the t8lent to utilize these two elements well developed a vast readership in English. That following, in turn, helped enhance the international appeal of this writing in Latin America. Garcia Marquez, for example, gained a broad readership in Europe, Latin America in general, and the United States before enjoying wide acceptance in Colombia, a nation far more traditional in its literary tastes than the remainder of Latin America or the United States. The symbolic moment in which the ideology of the Cuban Revolution and the politics of the Boom were unit6doccurred in 1962 at a literary conference in Concepd6n, Chile. There, Fuentes declared to Donoso and other prominent Chilean intellectuals that the Latin American writer should be engage and join in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. As Donoso has explained in his history of the Boom, never before had he heard a writer express such political positions so stridently.

In Spain, the work of literary agent Carmen Balcells and the Seix Barral Publishing firm a1so contributed to the rise of the Boom. Bal-cells set high professional standards for Latin American writers and their writing that were unprecedented. In doing so, she was highly influential in the rise of Latin American novelists as fulltime professional writes. Before Balcells, the vast majority of them were forced to operate as weekend writers While pursuing other professions in order to sustain themselves economically Fuentes inherited a sense of writing as a full-time profession from his mentor, Alfonso Reyes, even though his upper-class family was skeptical that anyone could enjoy a successful career writing literature professionally For Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez, however, the very idea of being a full-time writer in Latin America seemed to be an unrealizable dream. The financial success of One Hundred Years Of Solitude basically resolved the issue for Garcia Marquez for Vargas Llosa, the encouragement of Balcells in the late 1960s was very important. At the same time, the SeiX Barral publishing firm in Barcelona not only published high quality fiction but also managed to distribute it successful throughout the Hispanic world. Since then several multinational companies have done the same, but in the early 1960s, rarely was a contemporary Latin American novel well distribut6dacross multiple, national boundaries.

The Magazine Mundo Nuevo, Published in Paris and edited by the literary critic End Rodriguez Monegal, M not only as an important cultural organ for Latin American writers in general but also as a key outlet for the writers of the Boom. Articles by them or about their work appeared regularly In 1967, just before the appearance of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Fuentes Wrote his influential article in Mundo Nuevo Praising it; a chapter of the novel was also printed in the magazine' With their novels distributed internationally from Barcelona and News of their work circulating globally from Pais, Latin American writers had a Presence never before seen or even imagined.

The Novels of the Boom

Some of the major nove1s of the Spanish language appeared during the years of the Boom. Indeed, works such as Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz, Vargas Llosa's The Green House, and Cortazar's Hopscotch are considered modern classics in the Hispanic world. At the same time, these and other works of the Boom are in the process of being canonized in American, European. and Latin American academia.

By the early 1960s, Latin American novelists were writing with a confidence and maturity unequaled in the literary history of the region. The reaffirmation of the right of invention established by Borges and the novelists of the 1940 dearly had had its effects upon the next generation of writers. Certainly no group of Latin American writers had ever confronted the enormous task of creating a Latin American literature with the same confidence, sophistication and energy as was represented in the combined creative efforts of Fuenes, Vargas Llosa, Cortazar, and Garcia Marquez. Their novels and other works of fiction of the early 1960-ome of Which were as accomplished as the novels of the Boom-shared certain common threads.2 The transformtion of regionalism that had begun in the l940s continued into the 1960s. The innovative narrative techniques of high modernism were extensively and intensely elaborated in novels of the Boom and Latin American fiction in general of the 1960s. By the end of the decade, in fact, Latin American Writers had carried the possibility of narrative technique to its bots, elaborating such complex and challenging novels as Vargas Llosa's Conversation in The Cathedral (1969) and Fuentes's A Change Of Skin (l967). The novelists of theis period were also beginning to experiment with way to engage actively the reader in the creative process; the most celebrated effort along these lines was Cortazar's Hopscotch, but other works of this type appeared with increasing frequency as the 1960s proposed.

The early major works associated with the Boom were Vargas Llosa's The Time of the Hero (given the Biblioteca Breve literary prize in 1962; published in 1963) and Fuentes's The Death Of Artemio Cruz(l962). Vargas Llosa wrote The Time of the Hero in Paris, often sharing the manuscript with Cortazar. When he completed it. he attempted to get it published in Paris in French but failed. The French literary critic Claude Couffon served as an intermediary and managed to get a reading from the Spanish editor Carlos Barral. Barral's interest in the book and the subsequent award of the Biblioteca Breve prize contributed to Vargas Llosa exploding onto the literary scene inrtte1960s. Ia ciudad y los perros (the original Spanish title of The Time of the Hero). in fact, was one of the few Latin American novels ever to have gained a wide readership throughout Latin America at the time of its Publication.3 With hi, first novel, Vargas Llosa was an instant celebrity at the age of 26. Fuentes achieved similar success with The Death of ArtemiO Cruz, although he already had gained a literary reputation in Mexico With the publication of his first novel Where the Air Is Clear (1958). In terms of public recognition, Vargas Llosa was aided by the fact that The Time of the Hero was considered something of a scandal in Peru because Of its irreverent critique of a renowned military school in Lima.

In Latin America, Cortazar's Hopscotch represented a literary revolution that seemed to spawn all sorts of other revolutions. This "antinovel," as Cortazar called it. represented a subversion of all traditional forms of art including the novel. Cortasar's alter ego in the novel, a writer named Morelli, proposes radical changes in the novel form that eventually resulted, in fact, in the appearance of a broad range of postmodern novels in the late 1960s and beyond. Hopscotch was one of those works--like Borges's Ficciones before and Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude after - that opened the door to Wherever the writers' imagination might lead them. In addition, no other work of fiction from Latin America had ever extended such an explicit invitation to the reader to participat6in the creative process. The engagement of the reader pioneered in Hopscotch became a common strategy in postmodern fiction of the late l960s and l970s.

The publication of The Death of ArtemiO Cruz, The Time Of the Hero, and Hopscotch provided the first announcement of the Boom. After the appearance of these fine novels. even more accomplished books of fiction were Produced in the 1960s, including One Hundred years of Solitude, Vargas Llosa's The Green House (l965) and Conversation in The Cathedral (1969). Fuentes's A Change Of Skin (1967) and Birthday(1969). Jose Donoso, who was closely associated with the writers of the Boom published The Obscene Bird of the Night in 1970.

Other Novelists of the l960s

The enormous attention paid to the writers of the Boom, unfortunately, tended to overshadow the overall high quality of Latin American writing. For the reader of the entire range of Latin American fiction, the Boom represented the tip of the iceberg. Such talented writers as the Brazilians Clarice Lispector and Joao Guimaraes Rosa; the Chileans Jose Donoso and Jorge Guzman; the Venezuelans Salvador Garmendia and Adriano Gonzalez Leon; the Colombians Manuel Mejia Vallejo, Manuel Zapata Olivella, and Hector Rojas Herazo; the Cubans Jose Lezama Lima, Guillarmo Cabrera Infante, and Severo Sarduy the Argentineans Manuel Puig, David Vinas, and Hector Libertella; and the Mexicans Fernando de1 Paso, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Salvador Elizondo, Jose Agustin, and Gustavo Sainz were often ignored in favor of more celebrated novelists.

These and other talented Latin American writers produced some of the most accomplished novels of the 1960s, including Lezama Lhoa's Paradiso (1966) and Gonzalez Leon's Pais portatil (1968). Modernist fiction was at its zenith in Latin America, and a host of more experimental Postmodern novels appeared, such as Elizondo's Farabeuf (l965), Cabrera Infantes Three Trapped Tiger (1967), and Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth (1969).

The Demise of the Boom

By the early l970s, the unity among the writers of the Boom began to dissipate, and by the mid-1970s they were no longer personal friends and political allies. The phenomenon of the Boom had reached its end, even though each of the period's four major Writers continued his stellar literary career.

In the late 1960s, when Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, and Donoso were living in Barcelona, Cortazar was in Paris and Fuentes spent most of his time in Mexico. During these years, the Boom was at its zenith, and the personal relationships among Fuentes, Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, Cortazar and Donoso were at their best. In December l968, Garcia Marquez, Cortazar, and Fuentes boarded a train in Paris for Prague and then toured several Sovietds1oc countries. As well as being close friends, they formed a united front politically and aesthetically.

Despite the friendships. schisms among the writers of the Boom began to surface for both political and personal reasons. The first major public indication of growing political differences appeared with the celebrated case of the Cuban poet Heberto Padilla. When he was arrested for writing poetry that the Cuban government considered unacceptable, several of Latin America's most prominent intellectuals protested. Fuentes, Vargas Llosa, Donoso, and others signed a letter directed to Castro demanding the re1ease of Padilla. Over the ensuing years, Garcia Marquez and Cortazar remained firmly a1igned with the Cuban leader, while Fuentes, Donoso, and Vargas Llosa have been more distanced and occasionally critical.
The last time the writers of the Boom were all together, in fact, was in l970 in France. To attend a theater festival in Avignon that included a presentation of Fuentes's play El tuerto es rey Fuentes, Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa and Donoso, along With the Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo, stayed at a home near Avignon owned by Cortazar In Avignon the six made plans for their involvement in the quarterly magazine of criticism Libre, Which Goytisolo edited. According to him, the venture should have we1ded these writers together but it became, in fact, a weapon pitting them against each other until in the end they were enemies.4 Goytisolo has explained the situation in more deteil as follows. Libre was financed by Albina de Boisrourray, a young, beautiful. and wealthy woman with a passion for literature and cinema. When Goytisolo met with Fuentes and the other writers in Avignon, he intended to publish a magazine that would support the Cuban regime from the outside and also strengthen the position of intellectuals who, like Padilla, were struggling inside Cuba for freedom of expression and real democracy. But their earlier differences over Cuba and Padilla resulted in further divisions among the writers of the Boom. Since the Avignon meeting the friendships and alliances among Latin American writers have been defined, in many cases, by positions for or against the Cuban government.

The Boom in the 1990s

The writers of What was the l960s Boom have few associations among themselves today. Cortazar, Who had maintained personal relationships with the other three, died in 1984' Fuent6s and Garcia Marquez, who had become friends in the early 1960s in Mexico City, have maintained their friendship throughout the decades. They both own homes in Mexico City and frequently socialize when they are both in the Mexican capital. Vargas Llosa and Fuentes own homes in London, where Vargas Uosa lives year-round and Fuentes resides sis months a year. Political differences, however, have created barriers betw6en them. Vargas Llosa has become too politically conservative for Fuentes and many other Latin American intellectuals. Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez also have distanced themselves from one another and have not been on speaking terms since the early 1970s.

By the l990s, the impressive visibility of the Latin American writer of the 1960s Boom had been matched by that of sever women writers. The rise of the Chilean Isabel Allende and the Mexican Laura Esquivel (whose book sales have surpassed some of the writings of the Boom) has proven that talented women writers, too, can be celebrity figures in Latin America.