South American historical fiction

Please recommend South American historical fiction (any period) that is lively, surprising and vivid.

There isn't a huge amount out there (I'm writing something set there myself, and I checked out "competing" titles).

However, it depends how loosely you define historical fiction. If you took a fairly broad definition, there is plenty of fine work from people like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa (and a lot of people rave about Isabelle Allende). Louis de Bernieres (author of Corelli's Mandolin) set a trilogy there which is a homage to Garcia Marquez in many ways, so if you like that kind of thing (literary, magical realism), they are very good.

As for more "straight up" historical fiction, let me think... these were recommended to me, but I haven't read them yet, so I don't know what they are like: "The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch" by Anne Enright, "The News From Paraguay" by Lila Tucker (on a similar subject to Enright's novel; won the National Book Award in 2004, but has had mixed reviews), and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thorton Wilder is considered a classic.

Aside from that, one of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey novels was set there (I think it was "Wine Dark Sea"), and I believe one of Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe novels was also set there.

My favourites (again allowing the broad definition of historical fiction) would be:

"Who Killed Palomino Molero?" by Mario Vargas Llosa - a noirish mystery set in 40s rural Peru
"The Feast of The Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa - tense, lyrical, vivid novel set during the dictatorship of Batista in the Dominican Republic
And any of the de Bernieres books or Garcia Marquez books

The one that jumped into my head is The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles, set in Brazil in the 1920s-30s, about two sisters from a rural town who end up taking very different life paths--one escapes to a city and enters the life of the upper crust, and the other is carried off by a group of bandits. I think the novel is a bit long and gets a bit slow in places, but overall I found it well done and interesting in its depiction of the vastly disparate lives of these sisters and their social groups.

Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende is pretty much straight-forward historical fiction. She's sometimes grouped with the magic realism authors, but this novel has no magic realism. It was a good read and she writes vividly.

>3 SaraHope: I actually just finished reading this book and it was excellent! I strongly recommend it. It also has a lot of information regarding Brazilian politics in the 1920s/1930s as well as Brazil's relations with the rest of the Western world.

Oh I forgot one MAJOR recommendation: Jorge Amado.

Now, his books aren't historicals in the strictest sense. They were written in the 40s/50s depicting the 20s, but they read like historicals, so I am going to include them.

"Gabriella, Clove & Cinnamon" is amazing and I loved "Dona Flor and her two husbands"

I have two short novellas set in New Granada (Colombia) they are the first two of a series.
"Zipaquira" is the first and it is set during 1816, the first time Spain marched on Bogota after New Granada declared its independence. "Rionegro" is book two set during 1819 when Bolivar marched back into Bogota and won independence for New Granada. Book three will be along in about a month it is the story of sweeping the Spanish out of Antioquia (a department of Colombia, capital is Medellin). This is a continuing series and I have plans for many more. Keep your eyes out for what I've got coming. Bil Howard www.bil-howard.net

Do you count Mexico as South American? The heart of Jade by Salvador Madariaga is great.

Edited for typo

Brazil by Errol Uys seemed at first like it was worth chasing down, but the reviews have scared me off. Somehow he got James Michener to blurb it for him, though.

I've looked around for historical fiction about the Incans, similar to what Gary Jennings did for the Aztecs, but I've come up mostly dry. What I did find didn't sound that great.

My conclusion is that while historical fiction about South America has been done, nobody's pulled off a win yet in terms of bestsellerdom.

I like Gabriel Marquez, but books like One Hundred Years of Solitude are definitely not straightforward historical tales, as (2) said above.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson - this is an excellent book with much of it taking place in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego as well as Chile in the 1830's tracing the voyages of the HMS Beagle as a survey ship under captain Fitzroy and later Charles Darwin. the story is about 50/50 south America and England. You see the influence of religion on science as well as the treatment of the natives. Highly recommended

I was reminded of this topic when I heard an episode of the recent CBC radio interview series, "Brazil Inside Out". Not sure how many of these authors write historical fiction, but it should help identify some names that are big within their country, if not necessarily outside it: http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/

I'm another fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, but as already mentioned, many would see his work as Magical Realism rather than straightforward historical. I also enjoyed A storm hits Valparaiso by David Gaughran, which is a novel about South America's struggle for liberation from the Spanish.