/ARTS WEEKLY/ LITERATURE: From Chile’s McOndo to Mexico’s Manifesto

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

José Eduardo Mora

SAN JOSE, Oct 14 2003 (IPS) - The literary movements of Chile and Mexico have been at the vanguard of Latin American literature since 1996, according to the participants in "Amón Literario", a gathering in Costa Rica of 35 writers from Latin America and Spain.

Chile, with its "McOndo" movement, and Mexico, with its "crack manifesto", featuring Jorge Volpi and Ignacio Padilla – both present for the San José meet -, remain at the forefront of new Latin American literature.

The Chilean-Mexican dominance, new paradigms, viewpoints, distortions and images in the region’s literature and the role of the Ibero-American writer with respect to society were some of the issues discussed during the four-day forum in the Costa Rican capital earlier this month.

Amón Literario, organised by the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Cultural Centre, sought to build bridges between the various authors from Ibero-American countries and to create spaces for the public to interact with them.

Among the writers participating in the forum, in addition to Volpi and Padilla, were Spain’s Espido Freire, Argentina’s Ricardo Piglia, El Salvador’s Jacinta Escudos and Guatemala’s Rodrigo Rey Rosa.

Cuban critic Jorge Fornet, of the Casa de las Américas, noted that in the past decade and a half, the key year in the development of contemporary Latin American literature was 1996, when new literary groups emerged in Chile and Mexico.

The Mexican "crack manifesto" refers to the deeper origins of 1960s literature, while Chile’s McOndo movement – with its nod to Gabriel García Márquez’s mythical town of Macondo – focuses on the universe of pop culture and mass media.

"These are the visible heads of a literature that is much richer, but which had particular repercussions outside Latin America, becoming very important points of reference," said Fornet.

Although they have different perspectives, the two movements have points in common, such as the fact that the authors seem to have reached fulfilment, there are no longer any big questions, he added.

In his analysis, Fornet said it is no accident that Mexico and Chile are the leaders, because they are the two poles in Latin America where the neoliberal economic model has most taken root, producing a paradox in which the authors are more complacent, but are innovators as well.

The common threads throughout the region’s literature today in general, said the Cuban critic, include the urban context, technology and communications media, but at the same time there is disenchantment, in the sense that there is no opposing model.

"But there exists the ‘black novel’. The Argentine Piglia said that what most interests him about this genre is how it has permeated all literature, and this is very clear in novels like ‘Amphytrion’, by Mexican author Padilla," said Fornet.

If the black novel did not exist, Padilla’s book would not have been possible, he added.

Spaniard Eduardo Becerra, an expert in Latin American literature, said today’s narrative "emerges in formats that are already well codified, which are re-elaborated, parodied, or respected, depending on the case."

He said contemporary authors have a narrative discourse that, from the outset, is expressed as an individual experience in the world. "Compared to the narratives of the 1960s, which were all-encompassing, this is a first-person discourse."

The influence of the mass media in all its various forms – film, television, Internet – has been important, said Becerra.

Latin American literature today, he said, involves a discourse that is beyond the identifying frameworks "of ‘Latin American’ in capital letters, which so marked the region’s narrative in the 20th century."

As such, contemporary literature from Spain and Latin America has some shared characteristics, the result of an increasingly globalised world. Not only due to a common language, but also extending to other languages, the authors have a similar experience in the world and share many of the same "codes", he said.

A clear example of this phenomenon is Freire, a young Basque author who, at 28, has five novels under her belt, and does not hesitate in recognising the Internet as a crucial tool for her work.

This tool "links me with other contemporary authors, sharing a bit of scepticism. The sceptic is a frustrated idealist. It isn’t that we aren’t interested in changing the world. It’s that we believe there is no way to do so," said Freire.

Padilla, member of Mexico’s "crack manifesto" movement and winner of numerous literary awards, says that his notion of the author’s commitment, or literature’s commitment to society has changed radically.

With the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the birth of his son a week later, his idea that his only responsibility was to the work itself was altered forever.

"I believe in literature that is committed to humanity, and I think the voice of authors should involve a commitment to what is occurring in the world," Padilla said.