I have just finished reading the book “ Modern Latin American Literature – A very short introduction” by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, a formidable scholar with encyclopaedic knowledge of the writers of the region
What fascinates me is the link of Latin American literature with diplomacy and politics. Some of the poets and writers were honoured with postings as diplomats by the Latin American governments. A few got elected as Presidents while many suffered death, imprisonment, torture and exile. Not surprisingly, dictators, caudillos, disappearances, violence, exile, and suffering were the dominant themes in the poems and novels.
Diplomats
Pablo Neruda was Chilean Consul in Rangoon, Barcelona and Madrid, Consul General in Mexico City and Ambassador in Paris. Gabriela Mistral, another Chilean poet, was appointed as Consul in Naples, Madrid and Lisbon.
Octavio Paz was a junior diplomat in Paris and Delhi and later posted as ambassador in India. Carlos Fuentes, son of a Mexican diplomat, was ambassador to France.
Miguel Angel Asturias, the Guatemalan writer, who was the first Latin American novelist to win the Nobel prize in 1967, was ambassador in Paris.
Ruben Dario, the Nicaraguan poet and hailed as the Father of Modernismo in Latin American literature, was ambassador in Paris. Interestingly he was a kind of honorary consul of Colombia in Buenos Aires for some time.
Vinicius de Moraes, the Brazilian poet famous for the international hit song " The girl from Ipanema" was a career diplomat of Brazil. His postings include Los Angeles, Paris and Rome.
Besides these, there have been some other lesser known poets and writers who got diplomatic postings.
Octavio Paz was a junior diplomat in Paris and Delhi and later posted as ambassador in India. Carlos Fuentes, son of a Mexican diplomat, was ambassador to France.
Miguel Angel Asturias, the Guatemalan writer, who was the first Latin American novelist to win the Nobel prize in 1967, was ambassador in Paris.
Ruben Dario, the Nicaraguan poet and hailed as the Father of Modernismo in Latin American literature, was ambassador in Paris. Interestingly he was a kind of honorary consul of Colombia in Buenos Aires for some time.
Vinicius de Moraes, the Brazilian poet famous for the international hit song " The girl from Ipanema" was a career diplomat of Brazil. His postings include Los Angeles, Paris and Rome.
Jorge Carrera Andrade, the Ecuadorian poet, was a diplomat. He served as Ecuadorian Consul in Peru, France, Japan and US. Later he became Ambassador to Venezuela, UK, Nicaragua, France, Belgium and Netherlands.
Besides these, there have been some other lesser known poets and writers who got diplomatic postings.
Presidents
Romulo Gallegos (1884-1969), the Venezuelan author of the famous novel “Dona Barbara”, was forced into exile in US and Mexico by the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gomez. Later he came back and got elected as the President of Venezuela in 1948. But he was deposed within a year by a military coup which forced him into exile again.
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Bartolome Mitre, the Argentine writers were elected as Presidents in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both had suffered exile and had to live in the neighbouring countries for some years.
Daniel Ortega, the poet who wrote the famous poem “I Never Saw Managua When Miniskirts Were in Fashion”, when he was a political prisoner at the young age of 23 is the current President of Nicaragua. While in jail, he received visits from Rosario Murillo, a poet. The prisoner and visitor fell in love; Murillo became Ortega's wife. She has published several books of poems. One of them is called as ¨Amar es combatir ¨- to love is to combat. Many members of the Sandinista government were poets and writers. Ernesto Cardinal, the poet priest who was a Sandinista revolutionary wrote, “the triumph of the revolution is the triumph of poetry”. But the Ortega power couple are now strangulating freedom of expression with their family dictatorship.
Mario Vargas Llosa ran in the Peruvian Presidential elections but got defeated by Fujimori. Huidobro ran for presidency of Chile but did not make it.
Revolutionaries
The Latin American literature has been shaped by the politics of the individual countries, the region and the world. The major political events which influenced the writers were: Independence of Latin American countries in the 1820s, The Soviet revolution in 1917, Spanish civil war (1936-39), Cuban revolution (1959), Sandinista revolution (1979) and the right wing military dictatorships of the sixties and seventies. Many writers were Leftists and Communists while a few became critics of Communism and Castro and Ortega authoritarianism. It is a pity that Luis Borges of Argentina, one of the greatest writers, missed the Nobel prize because of his right wing sympathies.
Because of exile, many writers worked from outside their home countries in places like Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Havana was the hub of Latin American literature after the Cuban revolution. Casa de las Americas of Havana brought together Latin American writers, held symposia and gave literary prizes. But later when the Castro regime became a dictatorship allied with Soviet Union, Havana lost its appeal. Many Cuban writers fled into exile.
Many Latin American writers along with those from Europe and North America took part in the Spanish civil war supporting the republicans against the fascist dictator Franco.
Pablo Neruda, the leading poet of twentieth century Latin America, organized a congress of antifascist intellectuals in Spain in 1937 and wrote a book of political poems “Espana en el Corazon”. This was read even in the in the battlefronts of Republicans during the war. It was called as a poet's war, since there were so many poets from Spain and other countries participating in the war. In 1939, as consul in Paris Neruda helped repatriation of thousands of Spanish refugees by ship to Chile. In 1944, he was elected as Senator and the next year joined the Communist Party. He was a roving cultural ambassador for the communist party. He wrote Cancion de Gesta in praise of the Cuban revolution. But later he had conflicts with the Castro regime.
The Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen (1902-89) wrote political poetry and participated in the Spanish Civil war and was a communist. He joined the Castro government and served as president of the Writers Union.
Paz had Marxist leanings and joined the Spanish civil war. But later he broke with the Mexican Left after the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939. He remained as a critic of Communism for the rest of his life. He resigned his ambassadorship in India to protest against the Mexican government’s killing of student agitators in 1968.
Jose Marti (1853-95), the Cuban poet, lead the war of independence of Cuba. From New York, he mobilised Cuban exiles and lead an armed liberation group into eastern Cuba in 1895. He died as a martyr felled by the bullets of Spanish at the age of 42 . Marti has since then become the icon for Cuban and Latin American revolutionaries.
Miguel Angel Asturias, the Guatemalan author wrote about the dictatorship of Estrada Cabrera in his novel “ El senor President”. He was stripped of Guatemalan citizenship and forced into exile during rightwing dictatorships. Roa Bastos’s novel "Yo el supremo” (I, the supreme) was about Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship of Paragauay. Bastos spent his years of exile in Buenos Aires and Paris.
Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez have written several poignant novels on the dictatorship of Pinochet and Trujillo.
Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez have written several poignant novels on the dictatorship of Pinochet and Trujillo.
Twenty first century
The region has become free from military dictatorships in the new century and there have been no major revolutions and wars. After the collapse of Berlin Wall and the mutation of Cuban and Sandinista revolutions into authoritarianism, Communism has lost its appeal.
The region has not yet produced any literary titans in this century, after having captivated the world with its unique Magical Realism in the sixties with celebrity writers of the “Boom” such as Luis Borges, Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz.
Some new writers of this century have rebelled against the Macondo old guards with their own counter movement of MacOndo, in the era of MacDonald culture of globalization of the region. Other groups such as Nueva Onda (new wave) and Crack reject the exoticism of Garcia Marquez. These young writers are less concerned with a cultural identity and are more preoccupied with individual identity.
More...
Shimone Jaini, a young Indian researcher has written a thesis La Encrucijada: Where Literature and Politics meet in Latin America. A short version of this is in this link
https://www.indiawrites.org/latin-america/latin-america-where-literature-intersects-politics/
Abhay Kumar, an Indian diplomat-poet's article on poet diplomats
https://www.rediff.com/news/column/how-diplomacy-and-poetry-are-linked/20121030.htm
Abhay Kumar has written a book " The alphabet of Latin America- a carnival of poems". The book, to be launched in the second half of 2020, contains poems on Latin American cities, culture, writers and history.
Shimone Jaini, a young Indian researcher has written a thesis La Encrucijada: Where Literature and Politics meet in Latin America. A short version of this is in this link
https://www.indiawrites.org/latin-america/latin-america-where-literature-intersects-politics/
Abhay Kumar, an Indian diplomat-poet's article on poet diplomats
https://www.rediff.com/news/column/how-diplomacy-and-poetry-are-linked/20121030.htm
Abhay Kumar has written a book " The alphabet of Latin America- a carnival of poems". The book, to be launched in the second half of 2020, contains poems on Latin American cities, culture, writers and history.
No comments:
Post a Comment