July to September 2014: Mexico and Central America

Mexico and Central America

Welcome to Reading Globally's 2014 third quarter discussion topic, "Mexico and Central America."



The portion of the North American mainland lying south of the United States consists of eight countries with close historical and cultural ties, yet there is no collective name for the region. "Central America" most commonly refers to the seven smaller nations, with Mexico excluded. "Mesoamerica" is a term used by anthropologists to describe an area that includes all of Central America plus just the southern part of Mexico. "Middle America" is a region that encompasses not only Mexico and Central America but all of the Caribbean nations as well.

Any way you look at it, Mexico dominates the region. It has almost four times the land area and almost three times the population of the seven Central American nations combined. There is an even greater preponderance, however, when it comes to internationally-known writers and artists. Is sheer size alone responsible for Mexico's prominence, or are there other factors?

Another question you might address in your reading is something that may come to mind as you look at a map of the region: Why is Central America a collection of seven little countries--all speaking the same language*--instead of one or two bigger ones? What separates and distinguishes these countries... geography? indigenous peoples? external forces? And how are these elements reflected in the literature of Central America?

(* Belize is a former British colony, but more of its citizens speak Spanish than English.)

Contents

The background material presented here is organized by country. Two sections are devoted to Mexico because of its size and literary prominence. We begin, however, with a short essay on the pre-Columbian and colonial history of the region in general. Each section includes links to books and other resources for your reading.

The authors profiled for each country are only those whose works are available in English translation. There are many, many more important authors from each country whose works can be found only in Spanish.

Introduction and Contents
Pre-Columbian History and European Conquest
Mexico - History
Mexico - Literature
Belize
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama
Themes to Look for in Your Reading

General History

A Brief History of Central America by Lynn V. Foster.

Central America: A Nation Divided by Ralph Lee Woodward is probably the most comprehensive history of the region and commonly used as a college text. The 3rd edition was published 1999.

The History of Central America by Thomas L. Pearcy is a short but fairly current (2005) history of the region.

Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America by Walter LeFeber tells the story of American intervention in the region up through the Iran-Contra affair.

Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano presents an emotionally-charged view of Latin American history in the form of short, anecdotal chapters.

Sons of the Shaking Earth by Eric Wolf is a classic history of Mesoamerica focusing on the influence of pre-Columbian cultures on the development of Mexico and Guatemala.

Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion and Change by John A. Booth and others. This recently-updated history focuses on the external forces that have shaped Central America.

Regional Anthologies

And We Sold the Rain: Contemporary Fiction from Central America edited by Rosario Santos.

Clamor of Innocence: Stories from Central America edited by Barbara Paschke and David Volpendesta.

Contemporary Short Stories from Central America edited by Leland H. Chambers.

(The work of Mexican and Central American authors can also be found in almost any of the many anthologies of Latin American poetry and prose.)

Literary Criticism and Reference

Writing Women in Central America: Gender & Fictionalization of History edited by Laura Barbas-Rhoden.

Web Resources

20th Century Prose Fiction: Central America, a brief essay from the U.S. Library of Congress "Handbook of Latin American Studies."

Handbook of Latin American Studies, U.S. Library of Congress, is an extensive scholarly bibliographic database of works from and about Latin America. Note that most works cited are in Spanish.

A Selective Guide to the Literature on Central America is the extensive bibliography from Central America: A Nation Divided by Ralph Lee Woodward with hundreds of books listed by category with commentary.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Central America provides an extensive discussion of authors from each country.

Pre-Columbian History and European Conquest

   

When Christopher Columbus and other European explorers first surveyed the coast of Central America and Mexico in the very early 16th century they found an assortment of indigenous cultures ranging in sophistication from hunter-gatherers to mighty empires. Humans had first settled the area at least 9,000 years earlier, and successive waves of migration and conquest had resulted in a complex mixture of cultures and languages.

The oldest and most advanced extant civilization was that of the Maya, centered on the Yucatan peninsula. Its roots go back to at least 2000 BCE, and Maya civilization had flowered from 250 to 900 CE. The Maya were the only Native American people to have a written language, and their achievements in architecture and the arts rivaled those of medieval Europe and Asia. The Maya were a community of city states with no single ruler or capital. By the time the Spaniards arrived, Maya civilization was in severe decline, with many of their cities already abandoned, but they were still strong enough to resist Spanish conquest for almost 200 years. They continue to survive as a people with many of their customs and beliefs intact.

The Aztec empire to the north was completely different from the Maya. The Mexica tribe arrived from the north in the central valley of Mexico around the year 1248 and founded their capital city of Tenochtitlan. They found a collection of city states based on the remains of the Toltec culture, which had flourished from 800 to 1000 CE. Through a succession of conquests and alliances, the Mexica built a loose empire of tribute-paying states. The name Aztec derives from the mythical place of origin of peoples like the Mexica speaking the Nahuatl language. The Aztecs were warriors, not builders. The great pyramids near their capital were built by a much earlier, unknown civilization. At their peak the Aztecs were a nation of 350,000 ruling an empire of at least 10 million people.

Columbus charted the coast of Central America on his fourth voyage in 1502. The first contact with the Maya--a violent one--was made in 1517. Two years later an expedition under Hernán Cortés with 11 ships and over 500 soldiers landed on the Yucatan peninsula. Here Cortés gained intelligence about the Aztec empire from an Aztec noblewoman who had become a Mayan slave. Marina, as Cortés called her, or Malinche as she is commonly known, became Cortés' interpreter and mistress. Under her guidance Cortés sailed his fleet to modern-day Veracruz where he was greeted by many Aztec subjects as a liberator. It was with the help of eager native allies that the tiny Spanish army was able to overthrow a nation larger and more populous than Spain itself.

After conquering the Aztecs, in 1524 Cortés led an expedition overland into present-day Honduras. The Maya, however, did not succumb as easily as the Aztecs, in spite of the ravages of smallpox and other European diseases. It would be several generations before the last bastion of Maya resistance, in present-day Guatemala, fell in 1697. The Maya continued, however, to be restive under Spanish, and later Mexican, rule with periodic uprisings even into the 20th century.

The Spanish conquistadors focused their attentions on the Aztec and Maya empires because that was where gold was to be found, but they eventually subjugated and began to colonize the entire region. Isolated pockets of independent native cultures remained, however, in regions too remote or forbidding to interest the Spanish. The Viceroyalty of New Spain, with its capital in Mexico City, was a region encompassing all of Mexico, all of Central America except Panama, and the western portion of what is now the United States. Panama, together with Colombia and Venezuela, comprised the Viceroyalty of New Granada. New Spain was administratively divided into colonies and regions called audencias, and that is where the names and identities of the various Central American nations and Mexican states originated, but they did not become separate political entities until after their independence from Spain.

The one exception to Spanish rule in the region was Belize. Originally ignored by the Spaniards, in the 1650s it became a base for English and Scottish pirates operating against Spanish shipping. The pirates supplemented their booty with legitimate income from logging, and eventually were given permission by Spanish authorities to remain as long as they refrained from piracy.

Intermarriage between the Spanish invaders and Native Americans was common, and by the 19th century and into the present most of population were mestizo, mixed race. Their folk culture likewise reflected a blending of European and Native elements. African slaves were also introduced to Mexico and other parts of the region by the Spanish and to Belize by the English. Slaves were used for mining and working sugar plantations, but slavery did not flourish in New Spain as it did in the Caribbean, English North America, and Brazil. Slavery was formally abolished when New Spain declared its independence from the mother country.

Books

Ancient Mexico & Central America: Archaeology and Culture History by Susan Toby Evans.

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Classic eyewitness account of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs.

Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest by Jacques Soustelle.

Mesoamerican Voices: Native Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Yucatan and Guatemala edited by Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano.

Mexico from the Olmecs to the Aztecs by Michael D. Coe

Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings translated by Dennis Tedlock.

Web resources

The Ancient History Encyclopedia has extensive articles about the Aztecs and Maya civilizations. Search the site for articles on more specific topics such as language, art, religion, human sacrifice, etc.

The History Channel website has articles and online videos about the Maya and Aztecs

Aztec-History.com is a site created by a researcher who specializes in Aztec history.

Mesoweb: An Exploration of Mesoamerican Cultures is a resource site for students of pre-Columbian cultures.

Commentary on the Popul Vuh by Lewis Spence, 1908.

Mexico

Population: 118,395,000
Capital: Mexico City

 

   

New Spain was the largest and richest of Spain's overseas possessions. The Europeans' primary focus was looting the region of its gold and silver. Converting the natives to Catholicism was secondary. The development of local industry was discouraged lest it compete with that of the mother country. Likewise the New Spaniards were prohibited from growing crops such as grapes and olives which might undermine Spanish agriculture. For three centuries, Spain's colonial policies kept one of the richest and most fertile regions of the world deliberately underdeveloped.

When Napoleon placed his brother on the Spanish throne in 1808 many Mexican leaders saw this as an opportunity to declare independence, but for different reasons. Conservatives resented the liberalizing Napoleonic policies that threatened the power of the aristocracy and the church. Liberals wanted to establish a democratic republic modeled after the United States. On September 16, 1810, (a date now celebrated as Mexico's Independence Day), a priest named Miguel Hidalgo led an uprising of peasants and miners against Spanish forces. The uneasy alliance of the far right and far left won initial success, but Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain led to a prolonged conflict. It wasn't until 1821 that the full independence of New Spain was achieved.

Conservative factions took ownership of the revolution and established an Empire of Mexico, which included all of Central America with the exception of Panama and British Honduras (now Belize). Without popular support, the Empire collapsed in chaos in 1824. Mexico was declared a republic, while the colonies to the south organized themselves as the United Provinces of Central America.

The First Mexican Republic, 1824-1861, was an unstable period subject to conservative coups and liberal uprisings. Mexican history also began to be dominated by its land-hungry neighbor to the north. Texas, a Mexican state but settled by Anglo-Americans, declared its independence in 1836 and defeated an army led by Mexico's president. A decade later the United States annexed Texas and provoked a war with Mexico with the aim of grabbing more Mexican territory. Taking advantage of Mexico's internal divisions, a small American army landed at Veracruz and captured Mexico City in 1847, duplicating the feat of Hernán Cortés almost 300 years earlier. Mexico then agreed to sell to the U.S. for $15 million a vast territory including gold-rich California.

Struggles between conservatives and the church on one side, liberals and the poor on the other led to civil war in 1857. In 1861, with the United States busy fighting its own civil war, a consortium of conservative European states, led by France's Napoleon III, intervened with the ultimate aim of profiting commercially from control of Mexico's resources. With support from the church and most of Mexico's upper classes, a French army occupied Mexico City and installed a reluctant Austrian archduke, Maximilian, as Emperor of Mexico. The French never gained complete control of the country, and pulled out without protest in 1867 when a now-reunified United States threatened them with war. Maximilian was left behind to face a firing squad.

Mexico's president before and after French intervention, and the leader of its reform movement, was Benito Juárez. He championed the rights of indigenous peoples (being one himself), the separation of church and state, and the breakup of large estates and church lands. Juárez was opposed by conservatives including an army officer named Porfirio Díaz, who appointed himself president upon Juárez's death. Díaz ruled Mexico almost continually until 1911. The focus of his regime was law and order. Mexico achieved economic growth and stability, but at the expense of civil rights and the welfare of the lower classes. The reform laws of Benito Juárez were ignored, as the rich and the church retained ownership of most of the land. By 1910, dissent had broadened into open revolt, and the Mexican Revolution had begun.

The Mexican Revolution was a confusing period of conflict between numerous factions and shifting alliances. Radical rebel leaders like Emiliano Zapata in the south and Pancho Villa in the north achieved the status of folk heroes, while a succession of leaders built short-lived coalitions that took control of the capital and the presidency. Four presidents and many rebel leaders including Zapata and Villa were either assassinated or executed before liberal forces established firm control over the country. The United States took an active role, bombarding Veracruz at one point and later sending an expedition into northern Mexico. Adventurers from America and elsewhere (including this writer's grandfather) joined the rebel forces, while thousands of Mexicans fled north into the United States to escape the violence and devastation.

Liberal forces established Mexico's current constitution in 1917, but did not secure full control of the country until 1920. Violence broke out again in 1926 when President Plutarco Elías Calles instituted harsh measures to crush the political power of the Catholic Church. The counter-revolution known as the Cristero War lasted until 1929, when peace was restored through negotiation.

In 1929 the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the presidency, ushering in an era of one-party rule that would last for the rest of the century. Through steps like nationalizing the oil industry the PRI managed to strengthen the economy while maintaining a liberal, secular government. Mexico joined the Allies in World War II, but played only a minor role. The chief impact of the war was the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who were welcomed into the United States to replace Americans drafted into service.

Though the PRI regime was often corrupt and at times dictatorial, it kept the army under control and was never seriously threatened by right-wing counter-revolutionaries. At a time when Spain and almost every Latin American country fell under the heel of military dictatorship, Mexico remained a haven for free expression in the Spanish-speaking world. Political exiles and refugee intellectuals from Europe and South America congregated in Mexico, enriching the already vibrant cultural environment.

Mexico was not without internal dissent, however. In the 1960s and 70s widespread dissatisfaction with economic disparity caused a number of leftist organizations to spring up in opposition to the government. In 1968, ten days before the opening of the Mexico City Olympic Games, students in the capital organized a protest against the suppression of political opposition. The government responded with force, and in what is now called the Tlatelolco Massacre, hundreds of students were killed by the military and police.

In the 21st century Mexico peacefully became a multi-party democracy. Conservatives held the presidency from 2000 to 2012 when the PRI was voted back into office. After overcoming several economic crises from 1970 to 1994, the country's biggest challenge now is the lawlessness and corruption spawned by the drug trade. High unemployment, the privatization of the oil industry, and the impact of America's immigration policies are major issues as well.

Books

The Course of Mexican History by Michael C. Meyer and others. This college history text is currently in its 9th edition.

Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans and the State after the Revolution by Rick Anthony Lopez tells how the idea of Mexican nationhood was deliberately promoted through the arts.

Indian Women of Early Mexico edited by Susan Schroeder and others is a collection of essays on the influential roles played by native women in colonial women.

Insurgent Mexico by John Reed, an eyewitness account of the Mexican Revolution by the American journalist most famous for his book Ten Days that Shook the World.

Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1917 by John S. D. Eisenhower tells the little-known story of America's incursions onto Mexican soil during the Revolution.

Mexico: A Brief History by Alicia Hernández Chávez.

The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1942 by Anita Brenner is a classic photographic history of the revolution.

Web resources

Geographia.com has essays on the geography and history of Mexico.

The History Channel has an extensive collections of articles and videos about Mexico's history and culture.

Mexconnect is primarily a travel website, but it has an extensive collection of articles on historical topics.

Mexico Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection. Note the link to the online Atlas of Mexico which has dozens of topographic, ethnographic, economic and historical maps.

Wikimedia Atlas of Mexico

Mexico - Literature

   

Mexico City was one of the cultural capitals of the Hispanic world even before the nation of Mexico came into existence. The authors listed below are just the most prominent among hundreds whose work has achieved an international readership.

Authors

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), born in Mexico City, was the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish officer. A child prodigy and largely self-taught, she began composing religious poetry at age 8, and by her early teens had mastered Greek and was teaching Latin to other children. After serving as lady-in-waiting in the viceregal court, she rejected all offers of marriage and chose to enter a convent instead. Her writings combine religious, philosophical and feminist themes, and have been collected in a volume titled Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings.

Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) was a physician and a follower of Pancho Villa. He wrote a number of novels and other works, mostly about the Mexican Revolution as he had seen it. His most famous work is The Underdogs (1915), the story of a peasant turned revolutionary.

Josefina Vicens (1911-1988) was a pioneer of Mexican experimental fiction, but is largely unknown because in her lifetime she shunned publicity and wrote under masculine pen names. Her novel The Empty Book is a metafictional work that poignantly addresses the unfulfilled hopes and unrealized dreams of everyday existence.

Octavio Paz (1914-1998, Nobel Prize 1990) is considered Mexico's most important modern poet. His existentialist poetry depicts the plight of the underprivileged and attempts to capture the essence of what is Mexican. Collections of his verse in English translation include The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz: 1957-1987. His best-known work, however, is a collection of essays on the Mexican identity titled Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings. Paz was left-leaning in his political views, but his rejection of revolutionary violence alienated him from many other intellectuals. From 1937 to 1959 he was married to the novelist Elena Garro.

Elena Garro (1916-1998) was a playwright and novelist from Puebla. Her first novel, Recollections of Things to Come, depicts the Cristero War, which she lived through, and is a commentary on the role of myth and illusion in our view of the past. She is considered by many to be the most important female writer in Mexico after Juana de la Cruz, but most of her work has remained untranslated. Garro was once married to the poet Octavio Paz, but in later life she became alienated not only from Paz but from Mexico's left-wing intellectual community in general. She went into self-exile in Paris where she died.

Juan Rulfo (1917-1986) was one of Mexico's most influential writers despite having published only two small books totaling fewer than 300 pages. Pedro Páramo, published in 1955, is a novel about a man who travels to his parents' home town only to find it inhabited by the specters of its dead residents. The novel was a major influence on Gabriel García Márquez and is considered the starting point of Latin American magical realism. Rulfo's short stories are collected in The Burning Plain and Other Stories.

Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974) was the daughter of a wealthy landowner from the state of Chiapas but was estranged from her family and sympathized with the region's poor Maya workers. Her parents died soon after being dispossessed of their land by the government, leaving Castellanos on her own while still in her teens. She associated with other intellectuals in Mexico City and supported herself by writing. Her most important work is The Book of Lamentations, a novel about a 19th century uprising of indigenous people in Chiapas. A sampling of her shorter work can be found in A Rosario Castellanos Reader. She was appointed Mexico's ambassador to Israel and died in Tel Aviv in 1974 from an accident which some consider to have been suicide.

Jorge Ibargüengoitia (1928-1983) was a very popular Mexican satirist from Guanajuato. The Lightning of August debunks the heroic myths of the Mexican Revolution. The Dead Girls is about a pair of sisters who ran a brothel in Ibargüengoitia's native state and were later discovered to have been serial killers. His other novels in translation include Two Crimes and Kill the Lion. Ibargüengoitia died in a major air disaster in Madrid in 1983.

Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) was Mexico's most prominent novelist of recent decades. The son of a career diplomat, his exposure to other countries and cultures enabled him to look at Mexico and Latin America as an outsider would. Politically Fuentes was an outspoken leftist, but he refused to align himself with any party or regime. His first novel, Where the Air Is Clear was an instant success with its depiction of corruption and social inequality in Mexico. Fuentes's most celebrated novel, The Death of Artemio Cruz, uses innovating writing techniques to profile the development of modern Mexico through the thoughts of a dying man. His most ambitious work, Terra Nostra, attempts to encapsulate all of Hispanic history and culture in an immense literary structure that has been called Byzantine and Joycean.

Julieta Campos (1932-2007) was born in Cuba but acquired Mexican citizenship by marriage and is generally considered a Mexican writer. Her first novel, She Has Reddish Hair and Her Name Is Sabina, is a complex metafictional work in which the voices of various characters contend within the mind of a writer. In her experimental novel The Fear of Losing Eurydice, Campos explores various literary metaphors, in particular the idea that islands represent feelings of longing.

Elena Poniatowska (b. 1932) was born in Paris to a Polish-French father and Mexican mother. She moved to Mexico with her mother at age nine to escape German occupation and continues to live in Mexico City. Her work as a novelist and journalist has focused on the problems of women and the poor. Her most prominent work is La noche de Tlatelolco (transalted as Massacre in Mexico, an investigative report on the government's repression of student demonstrators in Mexico City in 1968. Here's to You, Jesusa! is a biographical novel about a working-class woman who participated in the Mexican Revolution.

Fernando del Paso (b. 1935) was born and educated in Mexico City but spent many years in London working for the BBC. His novels reflect Mexico's multi-cultural heritage. Palinuro of Mexico is a bizarre satire of Joycean complexity in which a pair of incestuous lovers explores a variety of cultural fantasies. News from the Empire is a work of historical fiction which explores the facts and myths about the lives of Emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlota.

José Emilio Pacheco (1939-2014) was considered Mexico's leading poet of the second half of the 20th century. His verse has been translated in Selected Poems of Pacheco. His shorter prose works are available in Battles in the Desert & Other Stories, which includes a nostalgic novella about Pacheco's childhood in the beautiful Mexico City neighborhood called "Colonia Roma."

Ángeles Mastretta (b. 1949) is a novelist, poet and journalist. Her novels such as Tear This Heart Out and Lovesick are romantic sagas with strong female characters set against important events in 20th century Mexican history. Women with Big Eyes is an autobiographical work about women who were important in her own life and based on stories Mastretta told her own daughter.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II (b. 1949) is a Spanish-born Mexican novelist and political activist who has written more than 50 books in various genres. Taibo's political works include 68, an examination of the government's violent suppression of student demonstrations in Mexico City in 1968. He is best known, however, for his series of detective novels such as An Easy Thing and No Happy Ending.

Laura Esquivel (b. 1950) became an instant celebrity with her 1989 novel+cookbook Like Water for Chocolate. Through culinary metaphors, it explores the conflict between modern and traditional family values during the Mexican Revolution. She has also written The Law of Love, a science fiction romance set in the 23rd century, and Malinche, a reinterpretation of the Aztec woman vilified by Mexicans for betraying her people to Hernán Cortés.

Francisco Rebolledo (b. 1950) was educated as a chemist and continues to combine scientific studies with cultural activities. He lives in the state of Morelos where he has been a university professor, researcher, editor, critic, and novelist. His only novel in English translation, Rasero, is the story of a Spanish diplomat in 18th-century France who has apocalyptic visions of the 20th century.

Alberto Ruy Sánchez (b. 1951) is a Mexico City writer and the founder and publisher of Mexico's leading arts magazine, Artes de Mexico. His writings draw upon his realization during a trip to Morocco how much Mexican culture draws upon Spain's Moorish heritage. His novels Mogador: The Names of the Air and The Secret Gardens of Mogador are both explorations of sensuality set in a Moroccan city.

Carmen Boullosa (b. 1954) is a writer who uses a range of forms and themes. Her novels include They're Cows, We're Pigs which uses the culture of Caribbean pirates to explore contrasting ideas of human organization. Cleopatra Dismounts is a feminist reconstruction of the life of Cleopatra that explores alternative views of her life. Leaving Tabasco is a coming-of-age novel that uses magical realism to illuminate the role of folklore in Mexican family life.

Enrique Serna (b. 1959) is a novelist who writes in a variety of genres and is highly regarded for his ability to capture local dialects and customs. His only novel currently in English translation is Fear of Animals, a crime thriller, but most of his more recent works have been historical fiction.

Cristina Rivera Garza (b. 1964) was born in Matamoros and is currently a professor at San Diego State University. Her novel No One Will See Me Cry is set in an insane asylum and depicts people on the margins of society during Mexico's turbulent 1920s.

Jorge Volpi (b. 1968) worked first as a lawyer before helping to found the "Crack Movement," a literary rebellion against the traditions of the Latin American Boom and magical realism. Volpi's novel In Search of Klingsor is a sophisticated thriller depicting the search for a Nazi nuclear scientist.

Anthologies

Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, edited by Álvaro Uribe, is a collection of stories by Mexican writers born since 1945.

Mexican Poetry: An Anthology, selected by Octavio Paz and translated by Samuel Beckett, is a collection representing 35 different poets from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion edited by C. M. Mayo is a collection of short stories by Mexican authors organized geographically.

Mexico City Noir, edited by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, is a collection of modern crime fiction set in Mexico City.

Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry edited by Monica de la Torre and Michael Wiegers is a huge bilingual collection of work by poets born after 1950, including poets writing in indigenous languages.

Web resources

Enciclopedia de la literatura en Mexico has biographical sketches of thousands of Mexican writers as well as other articles and features. There is no English-language version, but the site is very easy to navigate and glean basic information without knowing Spanish.

Mexican Literature and Authors from TheLatinoAuthor.com has capsule biographies of more than a dozen authors.

Terra Incognita: A Brief History of Mexican Science Fiction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Belize

Population: 334,000
Capital: Belmopan

 

   

History

Modern-day Belize was part of the Mayan Yucatan before the Spanish arrived. Largely ignored by the conquistadors, the area remained under native control until well into the 17th century. Around 1650, English and Scottish pirates established a coastal refuge that would later become Belize City. They found that they could supplement their uncertain income from piracy by harvesting logwood, which was used to make dyes. Belize gradually grew into a permanent settlement and an unofficial English colony. As the settlers expanded their operations from the coast into the jungle, they came into conflict with the remaining Maya. Many Maya were taken as slaves and exported to other colonies such as Jamaica and the Carolinas. Eventually, as mahogany replaced logwood as the chief export, the English brought in large numbers of African slaves.

The Spanish considered Belize to be a part of Guatemala, and periodically attacked the English settlements here and elsewhere in the Yucatan region. On more than one occasion the buccaneers abandoned Belize altogether, only to return as soon as the Spanish moved on. The English government was reluctant to antagonize Madrid by officially supporting the colony. In 1779, when Spain joined the war with Great Britain over American independence, Belize was once again abandoned. But the Treaty of Paris in 1783 finally gave the British formal logging rights in the region, providing they would abstain from piracy and not compete with New Spain by growing plantation crops such as sugar cane.

When the rest of Central America gained its independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Belize was left a self-governing enclave under British oversight. It was not until 1862, however, that the colony was officially claimed by the British crown. The delay was due in large part to resistance from the United States, which had declared a "hands off" policy (the Monroe Doctrine) with regard to European interests in Central and South America. It was a costly war against the Maya which led to the establishment of the crown colony in 1862, at which time the United States was embroiled in its own civil war and unable to intervene. The new colony was named British Honduras.

The vicissitudes of the colony's single-product economy led to local landowners' selling off to overseas investors, and eventually the British Honduras Company emerged as the owner of most of the colony. Slavery had been abolished in all British colonies in 1833, but the exploitation of the labor force kept most of the population in severe poverty until well into the 20th century when workers won the right to unionize. When the British government granted its colonies higher level of local autonomy after World War II, this only strengthened the growing movement for independence. The picture was complicated, however, by Guatemala's increasingly assertive claim to British Honduras. But Guatemala's own civil war put an end to that threat. Mexico and other Latin American countries which had originally backed Guatemala's claim came around in the 1970s to support the independence of British Honduras. Under pressure from the United Nations, the United Kingdom finally granted Belize full independence in 1981.

Belize has a stable democratic government and, thanks to oil and tourism, one of the highest per capita incomes in Central America, but poverty and income disparity are major problems. Its population has seen huge changes because of emigration to the United States and immigration from other Central American countries. The "Kriol" population of descendants of African slaves, which used to be in the majority, is now outnumbered by Spanish-speaking immigrants from neighboring countries. English is still the official language, but is now spoken only by a minority of the population.

Authors

Colville N. Young (b. 1932) has been the Governor General of Belize since 1993. He has taken a leading role in promoting Belizean culture and literature, publishing books such as Creole Proverbs of Belize and Language and Education in Belize. His own fiction has been published as Pataki Full: Seven Belizean Short Stories.

Felicia Hernandez (b. 1932) moved to California but returned to Belize at the age of 65. Her work is autobiographical and focuses on the lives of women and children. Her works include the novel I Don't Know You But I Love You -- Write Me Letter? and the collection Those Ridiculous Years: And Other Garifuna Stories.

John Alexander Watler (b. 1938) is a performing storyteller and the author of a number of popular works with strong Belizean flavor. His novels include The Bomba Codex, a thriller about the smuggling of Maya artifacts through the jungles, Cry Among the Rain Clouds: The Belize Detective and The Snake Doctor: Drama on Chireno Beach.

Zee Edgell (b. 1940) is a Belizian writer, journalist and educator who now lives and teaches in the United States. Her 1982 novel Beka Lamb depicts the early nationalist movement in British Honduras through the eyes of a teenage girl.

Evan X. Hyde (b. 1947) is a writer and journalist who focuses on the lives and problems of Belizians of African descent. North Americakkkan Blues is an autobiographical work about his college years in Belize and at Dartmouth.

Zoila Ellis (b. 1957) is an attorney who begin writing poetry at age 8. She currently lives in the West Indies and has published a collection of short stories called On Heroes, Lizards and Passion.

Margaret Reynolds (b. 1971) is a Belizean nurse, the youngest of fourteen children, whose poetry addresses the problems of the urban poor and other themes. Her collected poetry to date is titled Reality & Beyond.

Anthologies

An Anthology of Belizean Literature: English, Creole, Spanish, Garifuna edited by Víctor Manuel Durán.

Memories, Dreams and Nightmares: A Short Story Anthology by Belizean Women Writers.

Of Words: An Anthology of Belizean Poetry edited by Michael D. Phillips.

Ping Wing Juk Me, Six Belizean Plays

Snapshots of Belize: An Anthology of Short Fiction edited by Leo Bradley and others.

Other books

Thirteen Chapters of a History of Belize by Assad Shoman is a highly regarded history of the country but out of print.

Web resources

BelizeNet is a portal to travel information about Belize. The site has a very nice multi-chapter illustrated online History of Belize.

TheLatinoAuthor.com has a page on Belizean Literature that describes the country's literary heritage and profiles a number of authors.

Belize Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Belize

Costa Rica

Population: 4,586,000
Capital: San José

 

   

History

Situated between the Maya and Inca areas of influence, Costa Rica was in a relatively primitive state of cultural development when the Spanish arrived, nor did the conquistadors pay much attention to a region where there was little silver or gold to be found. As the southernmost colony in New Spain and of little economic importance, Costa Rica was left to develop on its own. In 1719 it was described as "the poorest and most miserable colony in all of Spanish America."

But Costa Rica's poverty eventually worked in its favor, making it the most stable and peaceful country in the region. With no native labor force, and no incentive to import African slaves, the Spanish in Costa Rica were forced to work their own farms. As a result there was no aristocracy or underclass in the colony, but instead a steady growth of democratic institutions and values. Nor did Costa Ricans have to fight for their independence from Spain; it was won by faraway battles in Mexico. Coffee was introduced to Costa Rica in the mid-19th century and quickly became the country's most profitable crop, giving a much needed boost to the economy.

The biggest threat to Costa Rican independence came in 1856 when William Walker, the American filibusterer, invaded neighboring Nicaragua and attempted to establish a new empire for slavery in Central America. Costa Rica declared war against Walker's expedition, repelled an invasion by his army of Americans and Europeans, and then invaded Nicaragua and defeated Walker. The drummer boy Juan Santamaría, who gave his life in an heroic action that turned the tide of battle against Walker, is Costa Rica's national hero.

In the 1870s the construction of a railroad to expedite Costa Rica's coffee trade brought in large numbers of laborers from Jamaica and elsewhere, and is the chief souce of Costa Rica's ethnic diversity. Since 1869 Costa Rica has had the most stable and most democratic government in Latin America. There were only two brief periods of instability and military rule in the 20th century. In 1948, after the second coup, Costa Rica's president simply abolished the military altogether. Costa Rica remains a relatively poor country, but has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America. Thanks to its natural beauty and stable government, it is the most visited country in Central America with ecotourism increasingly popular. It also attracts foreign investment, with major technology and pharmaceutical companies building factories in the country.

Authors

Carlos Gagini (1865-1925) was a Costa Rican linguist, philologist and anthropologist. He encouraged writers to express their national identity rather than follow European models. His only novel, Redemptions, is a condemnation of Unites States imperialism.

Carmen Lyra (1887-1949) was a prominent socialist educator, nurse and journalist who promoted children's literature and collected folk tales. Her collection of folk stories is included in The Subversive Voice of Carmen Lyra.

Fabian Dobles (1918-1997) was a novelist and social activist whose writings focus on the plight of the poor. His short fiction has been collected in The Stories of Tata Mundo. In his autobiographical novel Years Like Brief Days an elderly man revisits his childhood home.

Eunice Odio (1919-1974) was Costa Rica's most prominent 20th century poet. She migrated in mid-life to Guatemala, and later to Mexico City where she died. Her surreal and apocalyptic epic poem "The Fire's Journey" is currently being published in English translation in four volumes.

Carmen Naranjo (1928-2012) was a novelist, poet and essayist whose public service career included stints as ambassador to Israel and as the Costa Rican minister of culture. There Never Was a Once Upon a Time is a collection of magical stories narrated by children and adolescents.

Anthologies

The Costa Rica Reader, edited by Steven Paul Palmer, is a collection of over fifty essays, poems and historical texts relating to the country's history, culture, and natural environment.

Costa Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion edited by Barbara Ras is a collection of short stories by Costa Rican authors organized geographically.

When New Flowers Bloomed: Short Stories by Women Writers from Costa Rica and Panama edited by Enrique Jaramillo Levi.

Other books

Costa Rica: Politics, Economics and Democracy by Bruce M. Wilson is a highly-regarded academic study of modern Costa Rica.

Web resources

Costa Rican Literary Authors and Works from TheLatinoAuthor.com is a short essay on Costa Rican authors and their works (most of which are not available in English translation).

Geographia.com has essays on the geography and history of Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Costa Rica

El Salvador

Population: 6,134,000
Capital: San Salvador

 

   

History

In pre-Columbian times, El Salvador was the home of two principal ethnic groups, the Nahuatl-speaking Pipils and the Mayan-speaking Lencas. About 80% of them were killed by smallpox and other imported diseases before the first Spaniard even set foot in the region. This came in 1522, and two years later the Spanish descended in force from Guatemala in an attempt to conquer the country. The natives, especially the Lencas, put up a fierce resistance. The first Spanish settlement wasn't established until 1526, but it was soon destroyed by an army led by the legendary Lencan Princess Antu Silan Ulap. For ten years she led a successful resistance until the conquistadors finally succeeded in 1537 in re-establishing their settlement.

Unlike most other Central American countries, El Salvador played an active role in the struggle for independence from Spain. Local uprisings, led by middle-class professionals and intellectuals, took place in 1811 and 1814. It was 1821, however, before Spain finally relinquished control of New Spain, and El Salvador became an independent country in 1839 with the collapse of the United Provinces of Central America. From that point until 1931 the country was ruled by an oligarchy known as the "Fourteen Families." These were wealthy landowners who controlled the country's growing coffee industry and were guaranteed control of the legislature by the constitution.

In the 20th century poverty and oppression led to increasing unrest among the working classes, especially on the coffee plantations. Farabundo Martí, a Marxist, emerged as the leader of the peasant movement. When the Great Depression struck, crippling the coffee industry and plunging the country even deeper into poverty, a number of Martí's followers were elected to local offices. This triggered a military coup which deposed the civilian government and barred leftists from public office. A peasant uprising in 1932 was brutally repressed. Tens of thousands of farm laborers were killed in what was known as La Matanza (The Slaughter). Martí was arrested and shot.

From 1931 to 1979 El Salvador was ruled by a succession of military dictators, juntas, and elected officials backed by the military. After the 1932 Matanza there were few excesses of political violence, but economic reforms were slow in coming. With a rapidly growing population and no surplus land, Salvadorans emigrated in huge numbers. Many of them went to neighboring Honduras where there was plenty of undeveloped land. When Honduras started deporting these squatters--causing a dangerous rise in the homeless and unemployed--El Salvador responded by declaring war. The conflict, known as the "Football War" because it was triggered by a riot at a World Cup qualifying match, was short-lived but killed at least 2,000 people.

In 1972 an opposition party led by José Napoleón Duarte threatened to win the presidency from the ruling party. The military staged a coup rather than risk having its proxy politician voted out of office. Duarte was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death. Under international pressure he was exiled to Venezuela instead. Seven years later, in 1979, another military coup by more moderate officers took place. Ironically, while these officers considered themselves progressives and promised reforms, the coup kicked off intensified resistance among Salvadoran leftists, including the socialist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. This quickly escalated into a civil war in which the poorly controlled Salvadoran Army was notoriously savage. Duarte, meanwhile, returned from exile and eventually assumed control of the government. Because he was considered anti-Marxist, Duarte was generously supported by the U.S. government in spite of his brutal repression of his political opponents. The civil war was still at full intensity when the United Nations, in 1992, finally brokered a peace agreement and instituted civilian, democratic rule.

Over two million Salvadorans are now living abroad, mostly in the United States, and many of them refugees from the twelve years of civil war. Money sent home to relatives by these emigrants constitutes the country's single greatest source of foreign currency. But emigrants deported back to El Salvador from the United States contribute to high crime and unemployment rates. As the most densely populated and urbanized country in Central America, El Salvador continues to face challenges that are unique in the region.

Authors

Salarrué (1899-1975), born Salvador Salazar Arrué, was a painter, writer, editor and diplomat. Though from a privileged family himself, Salarrué wrote chiefly about the common people of his country. His collection of brief stories titled Tales of Clay depicts the lives of laborers, migrants, prostitutes and others of the lower classes.

Roque Dalton (1935-1975) was the illegitimate son of an American and a Salvadoran nurse. According to a legend which Dalton himself promoted, the father was a former member of the notorious Dalton Gang of Wild West outlaws, but some researchers dispute this. Dalton was well educated and attended university in Chile where he was exposed to leftist ideas and became a communist. In 1961 he traveled to Cuba. On his return four years later to El Salvador he was arrested, tortured and scheduled to be executed, but an earthquake destroyed the jail in which he was housed, and he escaped. In 1975 he was killed during infighting between factions of the People's Revolutionary Army. His poetry has been collected in Clandestine Poems and Small Hours of the Night. He is also the author of a biography of the Salvadoran revolutionary Miguel Marmol.

Manlio Argueta (b. 1935) began his writing career as a teenage poet, but he is best known outside El Salvador for his novels. He participated in the same literary and political circles as Roque Dalton but was exiled to Costa Rica in 1972 for over twenty years. His is currently the director of the El Salvador National Public Library. His best-known novel, One Day of Life, depicts a single day in the life of a peasant family during civil war. Like all of his work it reflects the influence of French Existentialism. He wrote about the impact of political violence in an urban setting in Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District, and returned to a rural locale with the same theme in A Place Called Milagro de la Paz.

Horacio Castellanos Moya (b. 1957) was born in Honduras but grew up in El Salvador, his father's native country. He was educated in Canada and lived in Mexico until the end of the Salvadoran civil war. His political views were leftist, but his criticism of the revolutionary party resulted in his going back into self exile in Mexico. He currently teaches at the University of Iowa. His innovative and darkly comic novels are all depictions of El Salvador's recent violent past. They include: Senselessness, The She-Devil in the Mirror, Tyrant Memory, and Dance with Snakes.

Anthologies

Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry, edited by Tania Pleitez and others, is a bilingual anthology of Salvadoran verse.

Other books

From Grandmother to Granddaughter: Salvadoran Women's Stories by Michael Gorkin, Marta Pineda and Gloria Leal. The life history, told in interviews of three generations each of women from three very different Salvadoran families.

Land of Childhood by Claudia Lars, originally published in 1958, is a memoir of the author's childhood in El Salvador.

Salvador by Joan Didion is a portrait of the country in 1982 during its brutal civil war.

Web resources

Cuscatlán (Spanish only) - An extensive and well-illustrated site on the history and culture of El Salvador.

Literature of El Salvador from TheLatinoAuthor.com has an essay on the country's history and principal authors.

El Salvador Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of El Salvador

Guatemala

Population: 15,438,000
Capital: Guatemala City

 

   

History

Mayan culture dominated what is now Guatemala during pre-Columbian times. At the time of European discovery, the Maya empire had disintegrated into a number of small, rival kingdoms. The Spanish exploited this division, pitting one kingdom against another in their conquest of the region. Guatemala became the headquarters of a much larger region called the Captaincy General of Guatemala which was subordinate to the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City but administered separately. When New Spain collapsed, Guatemala became one of the United Provinces of Central America. But by 1840 this union had dissolved in civil war, leaving Guatemala an independent country with roughly its present borders. From the 1840s to 1871, Guatemala was dominated by landed gentry and the Catholic church. In 1871 a successful liberal revolution under Justo Refino Barrios led to economic and social reforms, but Barrios's dream of re-uniting Central America led to his death on the battlefield in 1885.

During the first half of the 20th century, Guatemala was dominated by an American firm, the United Fruit Company (UFC). From 1901 to 1944, UFC subsidized a succession of dictators in return for monopolistic privileges. In 1944 a group of revolutionaries comprised of young army officers, university students and intellectuals succeeding in overthrowing the dictatorship. In the ensuing "Ten Years of Spring" (1944-1954), the revolutionary government worked to break up the UFC's monopoly and implement land reforms. The United States government, which had been supportive of the UFC-backed dictators, actively opposed the reforms of the liberal movement. In the early 1950s the Guatemalan government legalized the Communist party. Fears of a Communist takeover led the Eisenhower administration to authorize the CIA to support a military coup in 1954, putting Guatemala once again under the rule of a succession of conservative dictators.

In 1960, left-wing groups with ties to Cuba began military operations against the Guatemalan government, starting a civil war which would last for 36 years. As many as 200,000 are believed to have been killed, mostly by government forces. During this time there were a succession of coups which gradually led to a democratic form of government in Guatemala, but the military continued to operate largely outside civilian control in its war against leftist revolutionaries. The United States and several other countries provided aid to the Guatemalan army throughout the civil war except during Jimmy Carter's presidency when military aid was suspended. In 1996 the United Nations finally brokered a peace between contending forces.

Since 1996 Guatemala has contended with a number of serious problems stemming from its long civil war, including human rights abuses, economic stagnation, rising crime, and political corruption. Its democratic processes are functional, but since 2006 Guatemala has relied on an independent UN commission to help enforce its laws by investigating and prosecuting officials guilty of corruption and human rights violations. Writing and publishing in Guatemala continues to by hampered by government censorship.

Authors

Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974, Nobel Prize 1967) became a political activist while a law student in Guatemala. Later he moved to Paris where he studied ethnology. While in Paris he wrote The President, a critical and long-suppressed novel about dictatorship that shows reflects the influence of French Surrealism on Asturias. His political acumen, combined with his deep understanding of indigenous culture, are reflected in his later novel, Men of Maize, which shows traditional Indian beliefs and customs being transformed by the influence of invading Europeans.

Carlos Solórzano (1919-2011) is considered Guatemala's greatest playwright, though he lived in Mexico City from 1945 until his death. His plays reflect various themes and ideas, including existentialism, and have been translated in Crossroads and Other Plays by Carlos Solórzano.

Augusto Monterroso (1921-2003) was a Guatemalan writer who spent most of his adult life in Mexico, either in exile or as a diplomat. He is considered a member of the Latin American "Boom" generation, and is principally known for his humorous short stories. His works have been collected in the whimsically titled Complete Works and Other Stories.

Arturo Arias (b. 1950) was born in Guatemala, educated in France, and currently teaches (in Spanish) at the University of Texas. He is an expert in the problems of race, ethnicity and gender in Central America. His non-fiction writings in English translation include After the Bombs (1990), The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy (2001), and Taking Their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America (2007). Arias has published several novels in Spanish; the only one that has been translated into English is Rattlesnake, a spy thriller set in Guatemala in the 1980s.

Rigoberta Menchú (b. 1959, Nobel Peace Prize 1992) is a Guatemalan Indian of the K'iche' people, a Mayan culture. Menchú became an activist on behalf of her country's indigenous poor during the Guatemalan civil war in which her father was tortured and killed. After being exiled to Mexico, she narrated the story of her life to Elizabeth Burgos who published it as I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Some scholars and political enemies have accused Menchú of fabricating parts of her life story for political purposes. She continued the story of her life in Crossing Borders and has written two works for children, The Girl from Chimel and The Honey Jar.

Anthologies

The Guatemalan Reader: History, Culture, Politics edited by Greg Grandin and others has an assortment of essays, images, stories and poems representing Guatemala's past and present.

Other books

A Beauty that Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala by W. George Lovell looks at the historical roots of Guatemala's long civil war.

Mayan Folktales: Folklore from Lake Atitlán, Guatemala by James D. Sexton.

The River of Lost Voices by Mark Brazaitis is an award-winning collection of short stories set in Guatemala written by an American former Peace Corps volunteer.

Web resources

Guatemalan Literary Works and Authors from TheLatinoAuthor.com is a brief essay on Guatemalan history and culture.

Guatemala Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Guatemala

Honduras

Population: 8,250,000
Capital: Tegucigalpa

 

   

History

Honduras was the southernmost extent of the Maya civilization, and small numbers of Maya survive there to this day. Columbus was the first European to visit the territory in 1502, but it was Hernan Cortes in 1524, leading a force south from Mexico, who established the first permanent Spanish presence. It was primarily Cortes's Indian allies from Mexico who subdued the Maya population and garrisoned the colony to maintain Spanish authority. Gold and silver mining made Honduras an important trade center in the 16th century, but the deposits played out in only a few years, leaving the colony a pirate-infested backwater. This was especially true of the northern coast where English pirates formed an alliance with the Miskito Indians. In the 18th century Britain even declared the area a protectorate, but never established formal control. Spain gradually reasserted its authority over the region in the second half of the century as the development of mercury mining brought renewed economic growth to the colony.

Honduras became an independent nation in 1838 when the United Provinces of Central America collapsed, though Honduran leaders continued to favor the idea of a united Central America and would back successive attempts to restore it. Sharp divisions between liberal and conservative factions led to decades of political strife. An added complication was the British claim to the Islas de la Bahia (Bay Islands) off the northern coast of Honduras. These islands were largely populated by the descendants of English pirates. When Britain relinquished its claim to the islands in 1859, the inhabitants turned to the American filibuster William Walker who had only recently been expelled from Nicaragua with the aid of the Honduran army. Walker landed in Honduras in 1860, expecting Hondurans to flock to his support. Instead he was forced to take refuge with the British, who promptly handed him over to the Honduran government which executed him a few days later.

In 1889 the first shipment of bananas made its way from Honduras to New Orleans, and within decades the banana dominated Honduran affairs. A steady succession of corrupt and unstable dictatorships granted large land concessions to American fruit companies in return for railroads that never materialized. Eventually most of northern Honduras was owned and governed by companies such as the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company (now known as Dole), and the United States government became increasingly involved in Honduran political conflicts. Between 1903 and 1925 American troops and warships were deployed on numerous occasions to protect corporate assets from revolutionaries or to intervene in disputes between Honduras and its more powerful neighbors.

Between 1925 and 1930 Honduras enjoyed a period of democratic rule and relative prosperity, though the country's economy was still dominated by American fruit companies. Bananas accounted for 80% of Honduran exports. The Great Depression caused a collapse in the banana market, and plunged Honduras into economic and political chaos. From 1930 to 1979 Honduras was ruled by a succession of dictators and provisional governments. Yet while there were a number of coups and insurrections, Honduras was at least spared the civil wars and oppressive regimes that plagued so many other Latin American countries. The most significant outbreak of violence was the 100-hour "Football War" in 1969 between Honduras and El Salvador, when the latter invaded Honduras after tensions about the treatment of Salvadoran laborers in Honduras erupted into violence during a World Cup qualifying match.

In 1979 the succession of dictatorships gave way to a restored democracy, but the government remained in the hands of conservatives friendly to the American corporations which continued to dominate the economy. As a result, Honduras became a base for counter-revolutionary groups such as the Nicaraguan Contras. The government also continued to use the military to suppress leftists opposition groups. The threat of retaliation by the Nicaraguan Sandinista government led in 1988 to the deployment of U.S. troops to Honduras. While Honduras has been mostly under civilian rule since 1979, the military did seize power briefly in 2009 during a constitutional crisis. Honduras continues to be a poorly developed country suffering from a huge income disparity, large public debt, and the world's highest murder rate. It has also been particularly hard hit by natural disasters. In 1998 Honduras was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands, left over a million homeless, and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure and cropland. A decade later in 2008 widespread flooding caused similar damage.

Authors

Roberto Sosa (1930-2011) was a poet of humble origins whose anti-military works were banned during the period of the Contra Wars and U.S. occupation. His collections of poetry in English translation include The Common Grief, The Difficult Days, and Return of the River: The Collected Poems of Roberto Sosa.

Amanda Castro (1962-2010) wrote poetry drawing on pre-Columbian mythology. She translated her own work and that of other Honduran poets into English in the anthology Poetry by Contemporary Honduran Women.

(Horacio Castellanos Moya (b. 1957) was born in Honduras but is considered Salvadoran and is listed above.)

Roberto Quesada (b. 1962) has written about Honduran immigrants in the United States in novels such as The Big Banana and Never Through Miami. He is also the editor of When the Road Is Long, Even Slippers Feel Tight, a collection of Latin American proverbs. Quesada cites Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., as his major literary influence.

Anthologies

Poetry by Contemporary Honduran Women (2002) edited by Amanda Castro includes Castro's English translations of her own poetry as well as that of more than 20 other Honduran poets.

Other books

Don't Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado (1989) by Elvia Alvarado. Alvarado is a Honduran human rights activist. A PBS documentary about her work titled "Elvia: The Fight for Land and Freedom" can be viewed online.

When I Look into the Mirror and See You: Women, Terror and Resistance by Margaret Randall is the story of the chance meeting of two women who had been "disappeared" by the Honduran military in 1982.

Web resources

Honduras.com is a portal for travel information about Honduras. There are links to articles on the country's history, culture and archaeology.

TheLatinoAuthor.com has an essay on Honduran Culture

Honduras Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Honduras

Nicaragua

Population: 6,071,000
Capital: Managua

 

   

History

Nicaragua's Caribbean lowland, known as the "Mosquito Coast," was sparsely populated by native peoples and did not attract Spanish settlers. (The name "Mosquito" actually derives from the Miskito Indians and has nothing to do with the insect.) It was when they moved north along the Pacific shore from Costa Rica that the conquistadors found fertile plains and a substantial indigenous population. Nicarao, chief of the Niquirano tribe, would give the colony his name, but his people were quickly defeated by the European invaders. The men who did not die of European diseases were enslaved, and the women were taken as wives by the Spaniards. As a result, Nicaragua's population is predominately Spanish-speaking mestizo with only small pockets indigenous tribes speaking native languages.

Nicaragua's subsequent colonial history was relatively peaceful. The east coast was at one point settled by Dutch and English pirates and briefly claimed by Britain, but these events were remote from the principal settlements on the Pacific side of the mountains. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain as part of Mexico, later becoming one of the United Provinces of Central America. When that union collapsed in 1838, Nicaragua became an independent country. The country's subsequent history has been characterized by the struggle between liberal and conservative factions with the cities of León and Granada as their respective unofficial capitals.

Nicaragua became a focus of American attention in the mid-19th century when an overland route across southern Nicaragua was developed to serve the lucrative trade between America's east and west coasts. When a civil war erupted in 1854 between the liberal and conservative factions, the Liberals asked American filibusterer William Walker for assistance. Walker's mercenary army defeated the Conservatives, but then Walker usurped the government by declaring himself king of Nicaragua. His intention was to reintroduce slavery in Central America, eventually leading to a single, English-speaking, slave-holding empire of the middle Americas. In 1857 Walker was defeated by forces from Honduras and Costa Rica, and fled the country, only to reappear in Honduras in 1860.

Early in the 20th century a series of developments led to the U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. A liberal Nicaraguan government wanted to limit foreign access to the country's natural resources, and there were disputes about a possible canal across southern Nicaragua. The government's execution of two alleged American saboteurs in 1909 was the excuse the United States needed to begin interfering in Nicaragua's affairs, and a full invasion by U.S. Marines came in 1912. American forces occupied the capital city of Managua almost continually until 1933. The stated purpose of the occupation was to protect American lives and property, but the occupying forces also helped keep a conservative government in power throughout the period. During the later years of the occupation, Augusto César Sandino led a guerrilla army in opposition to U.S. and government forces. The Sandinista movement of later generations is named in his honor.

The U.S. withdrew from Nicaragua largely as result of the Great Depression. After a brief period of Liberal rule, Anastasio Somoza García, with American support, established a dictatorship that would run Nicaragua until 1979. Widespread corruption and other abuses eventually lead to open revolt, and in 1979 the Sandinista forces under Daniel Ortega took control of the country. The pro-Communist leanings of the Sandinistas led the U.S. to actively oppose the regime. The CIA helped organize a force called the Contras among nationalist exiles in Honduras. In 1982, however, the U.S. Congress prohibited further aid to the Contras. The Reagan administration responded by selling arms illegally to Iran, then secretly funneling the proceeds to the Contras. The Iran-Contra affair was exposed in 1986.

Once foreign intervention came to an end, the Sandinistas and Contras reached an agreement between themselves, ending the counter-insurgency. In elections since 1990, judged free and fair by outside observers, the Sandinistas and an anti-Sandinista conservative coalition have peacefully alternated in power. With much of its infrastructure damaged by years of civil war, Nicaragua remains the poorest country in Central America. Its economy is predominately agricultural, but two decades of peace have led to promising growth in tourism and foreign investment.

Authors

Rubén Darío (1867-1916) is known as the father of modernismo, a late-19th century Latin American literary movement featuring highly stylized musical verse. Darío published his first poem in a newspaper at age 13. While still a teenager he began to travel under various sponsorships, going first to El Salvador, then Chile, and eventually to Europe where he served briefly in a diplomatic post. His chief influences were French poetry and the aesthetic ideas of Théophile Gautier. Darío died at the age of 49 from the effects of alcoholism. Selected Writings is one of several collections of his work available in English translation.

Salomón de la Selva (1893-1959) was an American-educated poet who lived much of his life in the U.S., England (where he served with the British Army in World War I), Mexico and France where died in 1959 while serving as Nicaragua's ambassador. His first collection of poetry, Tropical Town: And Other Poems was written in English. He was the only Latin American poet to write about combat in World War I, but his "El soldado desconocido" has not been published in English.

Pablo Antonio Cuadra (1912-2002) was an influential poet and essayist. He opposed the U.S. intervention and the Somoza dictatorship and was briefly imprisoned in 1956. While Cuadra supported the Sandinista rebellion, he became sharply critical of the Sandinista party once they were legitimized. His poetry collection Seven Trees Against the Dying Light uses ecological metaphors to portray Nicaragua's history and people.

Claribel Alegria (b. 1924) was born in Nicaragua, grew up in El Salvador, was educated in the United States, and returned to Nicaragua in 1985. She has published both poetry and prose. Luisa in Realityland is a work in mixed form based on her childhood in El Salvador. Ashes of Izalco, written in collaboration with her American husband Darwin J. Flakoll, is a love story set against a 1932 political massacre in El Salvador. After Flakoll's death, Alegria published Sorrow, a book of poems written as letters to her late husband.

Gioconda Belli (b. 1948) is a Nicaraguan of Italian descent. She was active in support of the Sandinistas, and spent several years in exile in Mexico as a result. Her novel The Inhabited Woman uses magical realism to tell the story of a woman who joines the Sandanista movement. The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War tells Belli's own story. From Eve's Rib is a collection of her poetry.

Anthologies

Poets of Nicaragua: A Bilingual Anthology 1918-1979 selected and translated by Steven F. White.

Poets of the Nicaraguan Revolution: An Anthology edited by Dinah Livingstone.

Ruben's Orphans: Anthology of Contemporary Nicaraguan Poetry edited by Marco Morelli.

Other books

Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua by Stephen Kinzer. An eyewitness history of Nicaragua's violent recent history by the New York Times bureau chief for Nicaragua.

Thanks to God and the Revolution: The Oral History of a Nicaraguan Family by Dianna Walta Hart.

Web resources

Nicaragua.com is the country's official travel website. There are links to articles on culture, history and indigenous peoples.

TheLatinoAuthor.com has an article on Nicaraguan Culture.

Nicaragua Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Nicaragua

Panama

Population: 3,662,000
Capital: Panama City

 

   

History

Panama lay between the Maya civilization to the north and the Inca empire to the south. It's indigenous people, the Cueva and other tribes, offered little resistance to Spanish conquest and were soon all but eradicated by European diseases. In 1510 the Spanish founded the city of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, the earliest permanent settlement on the American mainland. It wasn't until 1513, however, that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa led an expedition across the isthmus to verify native tales of a great ocean on the other side of the mountains.

Panama prospered during colonial times because of its strategic location. Gold and silver from Peru and Bolivia were transported by water to the Pacific coast of Panama, where they were taken by wagon across the isthmus to the Atlantic for shipment to Spain. Agriculture was developed with African slaves imported in large numbers to replace the dwindling population of native laborers. Panama's importance to the South American gold trade led to its being joined to Columbia (then called New Granada) rather than administered from Guatemala as part of Central America.

Both during and after the struggle for independence from Spain, Panama's status was uncertain. Its more progressive leaders wanted to see Panama be part of the regional confederation envisioned by Simón Bolívar, a federation that would have included Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and parts of other countries. But when Bolívar's dream fell apart, Panamanians generally wanted to assert their independence from Columbia. This is when the United States entered the picture.

As early as 1520 the Spaniards had conceived the idea of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, but such a project was well beyond their capabilities. By the mid-19th century it was obvious that the isthmus was of vital importance as a commercial link between the U.S. east and west coasts. In 1846 the United States concluded an agreement with Columbia for rights to build a railway across the isthmus. In return, the U.S. guaranteed Colombian sovereignty over Panama. The Panama Railway was completed in 1855, and American troops suppressed Panamanian separatists for the rest of the century. In the 1880s the French attempted to build a canal across the isthmus, but the result was a spectacular failure. In 1902 the U.S. government decided to undertake the project, but could not agree with Colombian authorities on the terms of the deal. After 57 years of suppressing Panamanian independence, in 1903 the United States switched sides, sponsored Panama's secession from Columbia, and backed a new Panamanian government which quickly agreed to allow the U.S. to control the proposed canal under its terms. The Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and administered by the United States for the rest of the century.

Conservative commercial interests tied to the United States ruled Panama from 1903 to 1968, at which time the election of a reform government was quickly followed by a coup establishing a military dictatorship and putting the conservatives back in control. By the 1980s relationships between Panama and the U.S. had deteriorated, largely due to the repressive policies and drug-smuggling activities of its dictator General Manuel Noriega. In 1989, after Noriega annulled an election which would have removed him from power, the U.S. invaded Panama, deposing and arresting Noriega. Since 1989 Panama has enjoyed free and democratic elections and has been more successful than its neighbors in controlling the international drug trade. Domestic administration of the Panama Canal since 1999 has been very successful and has contributed to the country's relative prosperity. Panama has the highest per capita gross domestic product of any country in the Central America/Mexico region.

Authors

(Carlos Fuentes was born in Panama and is sometimes listed as a Panamanian writer, but his father was a Mexican diplomat serving in Panama, and the author had no other ties to that country.)

Enrique Jaramillo Levi (b. 1944) is a prolific poet and short story writer who has held university professorships in Panama, Mexico and the United States. His imaginative and often disturbing short stories are found in collections such as Duplications and Other Stories and The Shadow: Thirteen Stories in Opposition.

Bessy Reyna was born in Cuba but grew up in Panama before coming to the United States to attend college. She developed an appreciation for poetry in Panama, and has published several books of her own work including the bilingual collection The Battlefield of Your Body. Reyna currently lives in Connecticut where she has been prominent in gay rights and women's movements. (author web site)

Anthologies

When New Flowers Bloomed: Short Stories by Women Writers from Costa Rica and Panama edited by Enrique Jaramillo Levi.

Other books

Ancient Panama: Chiefs in Search of Power by Mary W. Helms is a study of the indigenous peoples of Panama up to the time of European conquest.

The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough is an award-winning account of the building of the Panama Canal.

Web resources

Panama Canal official website (English and Spanish).

TheLatinoAuthor.com has an article on Panamanian Culture and History.

Panama Maps - from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

Wikimedia Atlas of Panama

Themes to Look for in Your Reading

How is the culture of indigenous populations reflected in your reading, and does this differ from country to country? Is racial prejudice an issue?

The United States has been guilty of countless transgressions against the people and governments of Mexico and Central America, yet the people of the region continue to look to the U.S. as a land of opportunity. How is this ambiguity treated in the literature?

African slaves were introduced in large numbers in Belize and Panama. How do the culture and literature of those countries reflect the African influence?

Ownership of the land has been a source of political discord since colonial times and remains a very emotional issue. How is this subject treated in your reading? Are the land and landscapes used metaphorically?

About three-fourths of the people in the region identify themselves as Roman Catholic, and church festivals are a focus of community life and culture. Yet in much of their history the Church was on the side of landed interests opposing democratic ideas and economic reforms. What attitudes do you find towards religion and the Church?

Because of the prevalence of dictatorial governments and economic disparity, much of the region's literature in the 20th century has been characterized as a "literature of resistance." But in recent years many authors have broken away from this tradition to pursue apolitical themes. Where has your reading fallen in this spectrum? Are there political undertones even in works that aren't overtly political?

Women have generally been excluded from formal power structures but have played a major part in revolutionary movements. Have the women in your reading filled traditional or revolutionary roles? Or both at once?

Hispanic culture is based on a strong family structure, yet political violence and emigration have often separated families. How is the family depicted in your reading?

Globalization is a major force and a contentious issue in Mexico and Central America. How is it treated in the literature you have read?

Awesome thread!! Looking forward to this quarter's reading.

Question: I have Luis Urrea's Queen of America on my TBR pile, as I really liked The Hummingbird's Daughter. Can this count for this read, or is it too US focused?

Thanks, Steven. This looks like it will be a fun and exciting theme read.

>13 banjo123: There are no rules, Rhonda! You can read what you'd like to read!

I've already gone through my TBR pile for this theme read, and so some possible reads for me are:

The Wake by Margo Glantz (Mexico)
The Mongolian Conspiracy by Rafael Bernal (Mexico)
The Empty Book by Josefina Vicens (Mexico)
Palinuro of Mexico by Fernando del Paso (Mexico)
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo (Mexico)
One Day of Life by Manilo Argueta (El Salvador)
Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador)

I've also ordered several books Steven recommended:

Duplications and Other Stories by Enrique Jaramillo Levi (Panama)
Selected Writings by Ruben Dario (Nicaragua)
The Book of Lamentations byRosario Castellanos (Mexico)
The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibarguengoitia (Mexico)

Most of these books are Mexican, so I'll keep on looking for more from the Central American countries.

ETA: i have various books on the Maya and the Aztecs, so might read some nonfiction too. And also at least the first volume, Genesis, of the Memory of Fire trilogy by Eduardo Galeano.

I'm looking through my Kindle and surprised to see how very little I have from the area...

In fact, just one book, one which I've already read: Eduardo Halfon's The Polish Boxer.

It was fab, so I may re-read it and write something up...

Wonderful thread, Steven. Lots of exciting things to read here. I have a copy of Salvador by Joan Didion which I picked up cheap at a UBS years ago. This is an excuse to read it. I'm hoping my local library has several of the literature suggestions to add to it.

El Salvador

One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta
Originally published 1980; English translation 1983



In this at times poetic, at times harrowing novel, Argueta traces the life of Lupe, a grandmother apparently in her 40s, over the course of one day that turns out to be an eventful one. A Salvadoran peasant, her day begins at 5:30 AM when she hears a particular bird and sees a big star reach the hole in the thatch roof of her home. Lupe's story, which is told in chapters titled by the time of day, is mixed with chapters told by other characters, including her 15-year-old granddaughter Adolfina who has become involved in farmer protests int he capital, a local boy who has joined the police and become trained for "special" services, and others. It develops over the course of the day and the novel that Lupe's husband and other men, partly under the influence of younger priests who have taken something of an activist role, have joined a Christian farmworkers organization which has, needless to say, aroused the ire of the large landowners as well as the government which is (although unsaid) supported by the US as part of the global cold war against communism (this novel presumably takes place in the 70s). Several of the men have taken to the hills, Lupe's son has been gruesomely killed, and when the police come calling no good can result. Reference is also made to the events of 1932, when a peasant uprising against a US-supported government was brutally suppressed in what became known as "the massacre."

The strength of this novel lies in Lupe's connection to the natural world and in its depiction of the horrors of this particular time and place. It's weakness lies in its expression of the politics of the situation and in some of the characters' reflections on their personal and political growth -- both tend towards the didactic and can be repetitive. In addition, I noticed a few instances where Lupe used words that no peasant who barely reached first grade would use -- "predilection," for example -- and I found these jarring.

All that said, I found much of this novel compelling, and I appreciated Argueta telling it largely from a woman's point of view (indeed, several women, if you include Adolfina's sections). It also reminded me of historical events, as part of Adolfina's story involves the occupation of the cathedral, and Archbishop Romero plays a role helping the protestors -- as those of us who are old enough to remember know, he was later assassinated while celebrating mass. El Salvador is once again in the news, along with other Central American countries, with its children fleeing to the US to escape violence, and it is difficult not to see that the issues confronted in this novel have repercussions today.

Nice review, Rebecca. Do you think that the language would be more appropriate in the original Spanish?

Thanks, Rhonda. No, I can't imagine that the translator would have inserted a more complicated word than the author wrote. To be fair, there were at most three places where I noticed this, but it irked me each time!

Thanks, Rebecca, for starting us off with a fine review of an important novel. We seem to have hit upon just the right quarter to be reading about Central America, as it is so prominent in the news just now.

>20 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, I'm not so sure that the translator would necessarily be thinking too carefully about that. I have come across beautiful language mangled by poor translation quite a few times - in well-known works by lauded translators. It would be interesting to see the original. I used to read about translations and more or less believe the claims of publishers (e.g. Penguin's Pevear & Volokhonsky or the Davis et al. Proust translations), but having checked quite a few translations now, I've come to see that many translators are far from being experts in the language they translate from and so miss such 'subtleties'.

>22 chrisharpe: Very interesting. Unfortunately, not only did I not mark the 2 or 3 places where I was startled by the choice of words, but I don't have access to a Spanish original either. I'm very interested in translations too. By the way, a quick search leads me to believe that this may be the only book this translator (Bill Brow) translated (his name wasn't familiar to me), so he may not be an accomplished translator.

> 23 As I've said elsewhere on LT, I feel a translation can really make or break a book. Through trial and error, I have had to conclude that - except for a few well-documented exceptions - the older translations are generally a better read than the recent, hyped re-translations. That may be just my personal appreciation, of course. I have seen a surprising number of obvious errors made by big name translators, through lack of knowledge of vocabulary - particularly national variation. Some of the Bolaño translations seem to suffer from this, even to the mis-translation of titles, but it probably makes little difference to the overall impression. When I read something that sounds 'odd' as you have, I now tend to suspect the translator before the author. Anyway, I always appreciate your perceptive reviews. I'd love to chase some of these books down.

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo
First published posthumously 1632.
English translation by J. M. Cohen 1963.

 

In 1519 Hernán Cortés burned his ships to eliminate the possibility of retreat and set off with an army of 400 men to conquer a mighty empire with a population several times that of his native Spain. Bernal Díaz was one of those 400, and he left a gripping account of one of the most extraordinary episodes in history.

Díaz had sailed on two previous expeditions under other leaders to explore the mainland of what is now Mexico, landing both times on the Yucatan peninsula which was dominated by the Maya. He returned to Cuba, which by now had a substantial Spanish population, and joined a third expedition which elected Hernán Cortés as its commander. They returned to the Yucatan, where they learned of an empire to the northwest that was rich in gold. The Spaniards sailed on, landing and establishing a base at the site of the modern city of Vera Cruz.

The Aztecs (who are referred to in the book as the Mexicans) were a warlike people who were fairly recent arrivals to central Mexico. They had conquered their neighbors and quickly established a large empire of tributary city states. The tribute was paid both in gold and in young men and women who would be sacrificed to the Aztec gods. Díaz gives us a vivid and horrifying picture of these sacrifices and ritual cannibalism, which he says were practiced daily in every major city. By focusing on these barbaric rites, Díaz is able to portray the Spaniards as liberators and humanitarians, though he doesn't hide the fact that they were constantly impressed by the Indians' sophistication in arts, architecture, craftsmanship and warfare.

Cortés skillfully took advantage of the internal divisions within the Aztec empire to win allies, but only after several desperate battles against overwhelming odds. The Indians soon lost their fear of the Spaniards' horses and muskets. He was also aided by a prophecy which had told the Aztec emperor Montezuma that his empire was destined to be ruled by men with beards who would come by ship from the east. After a year of wars, truces, mutinies, betrayals, and shifting alliances, Cortés and his allies finally conquered the city of Mexico. Most of his troops had died in the process, as had Montezuma--ironically stoned to death by his own people after having been taken captive by Cortés but eventually becoming his friend.

Díaz's portrayal of Cortés comes close at times to hero worship. Cortés was a masterful leader but a fair and compassionate one. He always preferred to make peace rather than fight the Indians. He demanded only that they accept the King of Spain as their master, that they stop the practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism and sodomy, and that they permit the teaching of Catholic Christianity. But Díaz is harshly critical of Cortés's greed for gold--though it seems that greed was the chief motivation for all of the Spaniards including Díaz himself. He infers on many occasions that Cortés appropriated more than his portion of the plunder, then tricked his soldiers out of their meager shares.

In addition to gold, the Spaniards were also after women. Most of the soldiers came as colonizers, never expecting to return to Spain, but hardly any of them brought wives with them. The Indians often made gifts of women to the conquistadors, and when capturing a town the first thing the Spaniards did was to round up all the pretty women and girls. Díaz himself became a favorite of Montezuma when the latter was under house arrest, and boldly asked the emperor for a pretty girl in exchange for his friendship. Montezuma gladly gave him the daughter of one his chieftains. Unfortunately, Díaz never tells us what became of her during the subsequent battles and retreats.

Díaz was an ordinary soldier whose plain and simple Spanish translates very well into modern English. He gives us a remarkable and vivid picture of brutal warfare in an alien land. There is, for example, the battle fought under a cloud of swarming locusts where the Spaniards mistook insects for incoming arrows and arrows for insects, sometimes with fatal results. There is the initial peaceful entry of the conquistadors into the city of Mexico, a city built on the water like Venice and so magnificent and ornate that many of the Spaniards thought they were in a dream. And there are the desperate and nightmarish day-long hand-to-hand battles fought outside the city with it's towers looming in the background atop which captured Spanish soldiers were being sacrificed in full view of their countrymen, all to the deafening accompaniment of gigantic drums and horns.

The Conquest of New Spain is no doubt a biased work and subject to the inaccuracies you would expect of a man writing about his experiences of years past, but it is the source most respected by historians. It requires no background on the subject, and is thoroughly entertaining and often suspenseful. The translation by J. M. Cohen which I read is slightly abridged. There are passages where Díaz disputes the accounts of his contemporaries; Cohen has opted to summarize these passages rather than give them in full.

>24 chrisharpe: Of course, there are times such as this one where there is no choice of translator, but your thoughts about the older translations being more accurate are interesting as I have tended towards more modern translators when I have the choice (in the case of Zola, this is a necessity, as the early English translations were notoriously bowdlerized). Thanks for your compliment about my reviews; I enjoy thinking about and writing them.

As for tracking this book down, there is an interesting story about how I came to own it. Last year, for the Reading Globally South American read, I read a book that had been on my TBR for over 25 years, A House in the Country by José Donoso. I saw that it was in a series called Aventura: The Vintage Library of World Literature, published in the 70s and 80s and decided to try to find other books in that series; this was one of them.

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo



"I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there." So begins this brief, complex novella, originally published in 1955, that is said to have been hugely influential for the Spanish-language literature that followed it. The speaker has made a deathbed promise to his mother to return to her hometown, of which she has nothing but poetic memories, and seek out his father, who she feels didn't give them their due. But the Comala the speaker finds is nothing like the the Comala his mother remembered; it is literally a ghost town, inhabited only by the dead who clearly are not resting easily in their graves, as they roam around the town and also talk to each other while in their graves. And what they talk about is what they would have talked about while living -- curiosity about who is saying what about whom.

The narrator, whose name we learn is Juan Preciado, is not the only speaker in this book. Other characters speak about the past (largely in the third person), and it is not always clear, especially at first, who is who and what is happening when. This book bears careful reading. So, from the murmurings of the restless spirits, both the reader and Juan Preciado piece together the history of the town, and the rapaciousness of Pedro Páramo, who became the the town's biggest (only?) landowner through theft, murder, and rape, characteristics which he apparently inherited from his father and passed down to the one son he recognized, a son who was killed while riding his beloved horse. He had one love, a woman who was mad by the time he finally brought her to live with him, but otherwise was obsessed with his own interests. In the opening paragraph, in which the narrator quotes his mother, she says "Some call him one thing, some another." One of those names is surely the devil; it is often remarked how hot it is in Comala and in one sense it is hell, or at least purgatory. (The local Catholic priest plays a conflicted and not very honorable role.)

It rains a lot in this novella, and Rulfo includes many descriptions of the rain's impact on the earth. There are some lovely descriptions of the natural environment too, although death always seems to intrude. As the father of the mad woman Pedro Páramo loves says, "The world presses in on every side; it scatters fistfuls of our dust across the land and takes bits and pieces of us as if to water the earth with our blood. What did we do? Why have our souls rotted away?"

In the introduction to my edition, Susan Sontag quotes Rulfo as saying, "In my life there are many silences. In my writing, too." It is those silences that challenge the reader to figure out all that Rulfo has included in this compelling work.

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
First published 1916
English translation by E. Munguía, Jr.

 

The Underdogs is a story of the Mexican Revolution, told by a man who participated in it. Mariano Azuela was a physician who joined the army of Pancho Villa full of liberal idealism and enthusiasm. Eventually, however, he became disillusioned, moved to the United States, and wrote The Underdogs to express his frustration.

The novel follows Demetrio Macías, a peasant who becomes a renowned guerrila leader. He and his followers are, at first, focused on the cause and true to their principals. But gradually numbed by death and violence they evolve into nothing more than bandits, preying upon the very people they once sought to liberate.

"I hoped to find a meadow at the end of the road," one of them confesses, "I found a swamp. Facts are bitter; so are men. That bitterness eats your heart out; it is poison, dry rot. Enthusiasm, hope, ideals, happiness--vain dreams, vain dreams."

This is not a particularly well-written novel. Its message is delivered with a heavy hand and sometimes childish dialogue. But the scenes and characters it presents, coming from the author's own experience, are vivid and memorable. And what Azuela has to say about the Mexican Revolution no doubt applies to any prolonged conflict where idealism gives way to self-perpetuating violence.

GUATEMALA

The President by Miguel Ángel Asturias
Written 1922-1932; first published 1946; English translation 1963.



Never named, but based on Guatemala's early 20th century dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera, the president controls a web of hatchet men and informers (in fact, even ordinary people write to him to inform on their neighbors and others) to maintain his iron control over the unnamed country. Asturias wrote this book starting in 1922 in Guatemala, and then finished it in Paris in 1932, but politics prevented its publication until 1946.

The story begins among the desperate beggars sleeping on the porch of the cathedral; one of them, known as the Zany because of his craziness, kills a colonel who is taunting him. As with the "accidental" killing in The Case of Comrade Tulayev, this sets in motion an effort to frame political enemies for the murder, thus killing two or more birds with one stone. In this case, the enemies chosen are a general, formerly a favorite but who might or might not be siding with the "revolutionaries," and a lawyer who has also fallen from presidential favor; the beggars from the cathedral porch are forced to "confess" that they saw these two murder the colonel. Plot and counterplot take off from there, with others drawn into the conspiracy, sometimes horrifyingly so, as in the case of a poor woman who is thought to be connected to the general and, after being tortured and forced to let her infant son die, is sold to a brothel.

Although there are many subplots, and many characters, the heart of the novel is the president's "favorite," Miguel Angel Face ("He was as beautiful and as wicked as Satan.") and his surprising (to him) developing relationship with Camilla, the daughter of the disgraced general. Originally assigned by the president to help the general "escape," Angel Face involved the daughter in the scheme and either kidnapped her or spirited her away, according to what he told others. Angel Face is by no means an angel, but he does eventually experience the pangs of conscience as he comes to love Camilla.

Asturias was influenced by the French surrealists, and there are a variety of surreal effects and dream sequences in this book, as well as some lyrical descriptions of nature and landscape, some satirical sections, and some terrifying portrayals of the prison experience. Overall, it explores the insanity of dictatorship at many levels: not only how it views the slightest thing as an assault on the government (for example, when an illiterate sacristan accidentally tears down a presidentially important poster instead of the one for an event that has already happened and is thrown into jail as a revolutionary) but also how it affects people psychologically, whether they are struggling to survive, in prison, or (temporarily) a favorite of the dictatorship. It also dramatically explores the use of newspapers in spreading propaganda and information that isn't true but that serves the presidential agenda. Marred only by one anti-Semitic paragraph, this is a complex book and a devastating indictment,

MEXICO
The Mongolian Conspiracy by Rafael Bernal
Originally published 1969; English translation 2013.



This was a fun read, if the reader can get past the multiple dead bodies and repeated use of the f-word, for the protagonist of this 1969 novel, only translated into English last year, is Filiberto Garcia, a former fighter in the Mexican Revolution who is now the Mexico City police department's unofficial hitman. At the beginning of the book, he is summoned to the office of his superior and a person who wants to remain unnamed (but who recognizes as an up-and-coming politician) and is assigned to be the point person working with an FBI agent and a KGB agent to thwart a suspected plot to kill the US President and the Mexican President when the US President visits in a few days. The Russians are involved because they told the Mexicans that they had intercepted news of this plot from their spies in Outer Mongolia, and that it was a plot created by the Chinese Communists. Garcia is chosen for the investigation not only because of his professional expertise but because he hangs out in Mexico City's "Chinatown," a down-and-out street of cheap restaurants and has good relationships with their Chinese owners and workers (he ignores their opium smoking and dealing and participates in their gambling).

As the plot develops, there are hints that all is not as it seems, that the money that supposedly has been sent from China is too much for a mere (!) double assassination; in addition, Garcia develops a relationship with a young Chinese woman, Marta, but was she sent to keep an eye on him? Is it international intrigue, or is it a home-grown plot? And if so, is it drug smuggling or something more sinister? There are many complications before Garcia, more than the US and Soviet agents who tend to condescend to him, figures out what is going on. Everybody is spying on everyone else and some of the scenes with Garcia and the two agents would be hilarious if they weren't so chilling.

Despite being perfectly readable as the satirical noir classic that it is, this book also comments bitingly on some aspects of internal Mexican political intrigue, corruption, and brutality. On the negative side, Garcia can be quite offensive in his characterization of women and his relationships with them (although this is somewhat redeemed by his growing fondness for Marta). I didn't know what to expect when I picked up this novel, but I couldn't put it down once I started it.

MEXICO

The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
First published 1962
English translation by Alfred Mac Adam 1991

 

From his death bed Artemio Cruz reflects upon the episodes in his life: his revolutionary battles, his great lost love, his disillusionment, his loveless marriage, his rise to power, his triumphs and tragedies, and now his cynical old age. The novel is structured in alternating sections--a scene from the past followed by the thoughts of Cruz as slips closer and closer to death. The episodes from his life are not in chronological order but leap from period to period as memories do. His deathbed thoughts and sensations are in the form of a stream of consciousness that grows steadily more fragmented and incoherent as the end approaches.

We very quickly learn that Cruz was a soldier allied with Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, but at some point he compromised his ideals, married for money, became a landowner and then an industrialist. He rose to power by bribing officials, controlling the press, and making deals with exploitative American corporations. Artemio Cruz is representative of the ills of Mexico as a whole--the idealism of the Revolution corrupted by the violence of the Revolution itself into greed and conflicting interests. Eventually the corruption spreads into every facet of society until the revolutionaries become the very people they were trying to overthrow, and the disenfranchised gain nothing but new masters.

The episodes from Cruz's life take the reader on a vivid tour of Mexico's history, cultures and landscapes, from jungles to deserts and from hovels to mansions. Attitudes about Artemio Cruz himself are likely to be ambiguous, for the novel raises some good questions about self interest versus idealism. The Death of Artemio Cruz is a gripping and moving novel about 20th century Mexico and about the fate of social revolutions in general. I highly recommend it.

MEXICO

The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia



This book starts with a car trip in which Serafina, accompanied by three men, travels to a remote Mexican village where she shoots, but doesn't kill, a baker, and the men then set fire to the bakery. Then, Ibargüengoitia takes the reader on a highly enjoyable, if sometimes mildly gruesome, journey, as everything starts to fall apart for Serafina and her past comes to light. Based loosely on a real scandal, in which the bodies of six girls were found buried in the yard of a Mexican brothel, most of the book is written as testimony that could have come from police reports. Nonetheless, it is highly readable.

The reader hears from Serafina and her sister Arcangela (love those names!) who run several brothels, their other sister Eulalia who wants nothing to do with the business but nonetheless becomes involved in it, some of the prostitutes who work for them, some of the people they pay off, an army captain who becomes Serafina's lover and who works ceaselessly to protect them, the wounded baker (who had previously been Serafina's lover), and many more. After a period of building up their business, including the spectacular inauguration of a new brothel which everybody who's anybody in the town attends, everything starts to fall apart for the sisters, dramatically, and their behavior and actions spiral out of control. While telling a compelling tale, Ibargüengoitia satirizes widespread corruption -- everybody is out for her- or himself, getting paid or paid off, implicating others and lying to stay out of jail. He has a mostly matter of fact way of writing that slyly reveals the humor in some of these events.

Once I started this book, I found it hard to put down. It is out of print and I had to buy a used copy; sadly, the only other books by Ibargüengoitia that have been translated into English are also out of print and are wildly expensive.

Another from Mexico.

The Eagle’s Throne by Carlos Fuentes

I wanted to read something by Fuentes for the Reading Globally group, and picked this up because it was available on kindle library loan. Probably not the best choice. It’s a political thriller told in epistalory style. The different characters didn’t have distinctive enough letter-writing styles and that made it confusing. In the end, I did get caught up in the plot. Perhaps it would have been better in Spanish.

At any rate, the last letter packed quite a punch, and it was probably worth the read to get to it.

>32 rebeccanyc: I was very tempted to order The Dead Girls when I first read about it, but I already had plenty of Mexican fiction on hand.

>34 StevenTX: Unfortunately, most of the books I have or have ordered are from Mexico. I tried to read books from other countries first, and still have one or two from other countries, but I'm afraid I'm mostly reading Mexican fiction. And I'm going to try to get some other works by Ibargüengoitia if I can get them at decent prices.

MEXICO

The Edge of the Storm by Agustin Yáñez
Originally published 1947: English translation 1963?



This novel started slowly for me, but as I read further, I became totally captivated by the remote Mexican town and the diverse people who live in it. On the eve of the 1910 Mexican revolution, the town is a "village of black-robed women," as the first line of the book describes it, totally dominated by the most rigorous and harsh possible interpretation of Catholicism and the parish priest, Don Dionisio Martinez. Sex is frowned upon, with one of the leading organizations in town called the Daughters of Mary, a group of young women who are committed to remaining virgins, and retreats that focus on death and the world to come, with self-flagellation included, are a regular feature of the town's Retreat House. (Father Martinez flagellates himself every day, as part of his routine.)

But, as could be expected, below the surface much more is going on. Yáñez introduces a variety of characters early in the book, all of whom play an important role as the novel develops: the priest's nieces, Maria and Marta; another relative, Gabriel, who rings the parish's bells so compellingly they move people to tears, and who can barely communicate any other way; Don Timoteo and his troubled son Damian; young Pedrito, whose mother dies early; very unhappy and flirtatious Micaela; Mercedes, the head of the Daughters of Mary; a visiting woman, Victoria, who doesn't always wear black; other priests in the parish; and my personal favorite, the aging Lucas Macías, a tale teller whose stories of the past resonate in the present.

The calendar of the Catholic church informs this novel, as various saint's days roll around with their rituals, and there is a lot of liturgy (in Latin) included in the text. The description of the bells and how they ring is astonishing. The villagers have a fear of outsiders, especially northerners (they are in the Guadalajara region), including those who have been to the United States. The political deputy from the governing party is barely tolerated.

The book is dense and complex, and it jumps back and forth in time over the first year, with major events alluded to but not described until later chapters, creating a sense of foreboding. Often, also, Yáñez uses a chorus of villagers to comment on an event that is happening. As the first year ends, the pace picks up, and there are more references to politics and revolution, "the storm" that is coming, even to this remote town. (The Spanish title of this novel is "Al Filo del Agua," which an author's note says "is a farmer's phrase for the beginning of the rainy season and is often used figuratively to mean the imminence or beginning of an event"; however, the phrase "the edge of the storm" is explicitly used towards the end of the novel to refer to the coming revolution.)

As the novel nears it's end, even the Parish Priest, who has almost single-handedly tried to hold back the future, realizes that he is powerless to do so:

"The old Parish Priest had gradually become convinced by evidence that things were changing and his flock could not escape the changes; it was a feeling in the air, like the warm wind that announces nearby land, like the smell of smoke at harvest time, like the cold air that, one morning or afternoon, is a harbinger of winter. Whereas, before, he had been indefatigable, now Don Dionisio began to feel weary and to look forward to death. He was dissatisfied with himself, and was amazed to notice regrettable changes -- for instance, this repugnant curiosity which made him listen to worldly tales and be disturbed by them, the confusions in his reactions as a priest and an uncle, the depression when faced by worldly troubles, and, maybe, a lack of faith, of that serene blind faith which he had had in Providence." pp. 289-290

One of the beauties of this book is that, despite the apparent oppressive, unchanging order of the town as it is initially described, people do change, struggle with their changes, and even, sometimes, grow.

I bought this book after reading deebee's review a few years ago, and it's sat on my TBR since then until I took it down for the Reading Globally theme read on Mexico and Central America. I'm very glad I did. My edition (and it is sadly out of print) is enhanced by dramatic illustrations by Julio Prieto.

PANAMA

Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement by Graham Greene
first published 1984

In 1976, Graham Greene was seventy-two years old and living quietly in Antibes. Out of the blue came a telegram from a Senor V, informing Greene that General Omar Torrijos of Panama was inviting him for a visit--- he had only to select an airline and pick up a prepaid first class ticket. This may sound like the beginning of a Greene novel, as the author knew neither Senor V nor the General, and had never been to Panama, but it was indeed fact.

Greene accepted, thinking of the trip "...as only a rather comic adventure, inspired by an invitation from a complete stranger". In what may have been even more to the point, he went on to say "Fear can be easily experienced, but fun is hard to come by in old age, so I already felt a sense of gratitude to General Omar Torrijos.

The day after arriving in Panama, Greene and a friend were driven by Sergeant Chuchu, the General's security man, to a small house where

Two men presently joined us. They wore dressing gowns and underpants, one had bare feet and one was in bedroom slippers, and I was doubtful which to address as General. They were both men in their forties, but one was plump with a youthful and untroubled face which I felt would last a lifetime, the other was lean and good-looking with a forelock of hair which fell over his forehead and giveaway eyes (he was the one with bare feet). At this encounter what the eyes gave away was a sense of caution, even of suspicion, as though he felt that he might be encountering a new species in the human race. I decided correctly that this was the General.

Out of this unpromising beginning arose a friendship that was to last until August 1981, when the General was killed in a plane crash. At the time of the crash, Greene had been getting ready for a fifth visit to see Torrijos.

Getting to Know the General is the story of those four visits, compiled by Greene from his diaries. Much of the time Torrijos was involved with negotiations with the US about the Panama Canal and Panamanian sovereignty. In what could be a Peter Sellers skit, Torrijos gave Greene a Panamanian diplomatic passport and flew him to Washington as part of the mission accompanying the General when he and President Carter signed the Canal Treaty. Torrijos also took Gabriel Garcia Marquez on this mission.

On each visit to Panama, people wandered in and out of the picture. In this way, Greene encountered the Ortega brothers, various Sandanistas, and political exiles from all over South and Central America. He was flown to Cuba and met Garcia Marquez once more, spending an evening with him and Fidel Castro. During much of the time on his visits, the General was occupied with political life, so Greene and Chuchu would travel not only around Panama, but also to Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The multilingual Chuchu emerges as a true Greene character. He had been a professor of Marxist philosophy, who fled to France after a right wing coup, only to return to Panama when that regime was deposed in turn. His Marxist credentials by then were perhaps suspect, but since he had studied mathematics while in France, he was made a professor of mathematics, who happened to be a poet in his spare time.

Greene's book gives the reader glimpses of US-Panamanian politics, life in Panama, the turbulent world of Central America, food and drink, and travel. Its subtitle though is The Story of an Involvement and it is the story of the unlikely warm and personal relationship that developed between Greene and Torrijos that is the focus of the book. Greene was fascinated by the younger man, a person whom he felt knew he had not long to live; a person driven to win back his country from the US and to establish "...a Central America which would be Socialist and not Marxist, independent of the United States and yet not a menace to her."

Castro had told Torrijos years before to be patient, but Greene says Torrijos knew he could not wait. Greene did admire the General's loyalty to older guides, men like Tito and Castro. Perhaps he hoped to fill the same role.

Why did the General initiate the first meeting? Greene says he never did find out. That seemed to please him.

Monastery by Eduardo Halfon

Halfon is a prize-winning Guatemalan writer and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has one other book, The Polish Boxer, translated into English.
Monastery is a short work—about 150 pages—and reads as a series of inter-connected short stories. The main character—also named Eduardo Halfon—is the same main character as in The Polish Boxer.

Halfon is a lovely writer and props to the translators Lisa Dillman and Daniel Hahn. I loved this book from the first sentence, but did notice that some of the stories were stronger than others. This is a work that talks about family, nationality, and identity. A central theme is Halfon’s identity—or lack of identity—as a Jew.

I think that my favorite story was the first, “Tel Aviv was an Inferno” in which Eduardo goes to Israel to attend his younger sisters Orthodox Jewish wedding. In this story, Eduardo buys a tortilla from a street vendor, She asks where he is from:

“”I finished chewing a mouthful, my tongue stunned by the chiltepe, and said I was Guatemalan, just like her. She smiled politely, perhaps suspiciously, perhaps thinking the same thing I was thinking, and turned her eyes up toward the cloudless sky. I don’t know why I always find it hard to convince people, to convince myself even, that I’m Guatemalan. “

This isn't by a Mexican, but it is about the period when the government tried to suppress the Catholic Church in Mexico, and it creates a vivid feeling of time and place, so I'll mention here that I've just read The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene and that you can find my review on the book page or my Club Read thread.

I've started News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso, thanks to a suggestion on my Club Read thread, but it is a TOME, and so I won't finish it until considerably later in October. But I"ll report back here when I do.

Our quarter is technically over now, but I'm sure many of us will continue to enjoy the literature and history of Mexico and Central America in the future. Thank you to all who participated. This would be a good time to share any observations you may have on the region and its people. At the time we started this theme the news here in the US was dominated by the immigration issue, particularly with respect to Central America. Ukraine, ISIS and Ebola have since directed our attention elsewhere, but it remains important for people in this country to understand the culture and economic challenges of our neighbors to the south.

I'm still working on Men of Maize, which I enjoy a lot but have to take in in small doses. It's magical realism at its best and reading too quickly in this case makes it a bit like information overload. But it's a lovely novel about Guatemala and its indigenous belief system, written by a Guatemalan author who wasn't lying when he called it his best work :D Once I've finished it I will come back here and post my review!

>41 StevenTX: Some quick thoughts, and maybe I'll add more later. I was struck by the recurrence of several themes: political conflict, often involving police and/or army violence and corruption; conflicted attitudes towards the Catholic church, priests, and the church hierarchy; and the uneasiness people of different ethnic/racial backgrounds feel towards each other. I will definitely be reading more from this region (as I have from most regions we've focused on in RG). Thanks, Steven, for leading this though-provoking theme read.

Started this is September, but only finished it yesterday!

MEXICO
News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso



I've been reading this remarkable and complex book since September, and am somewhat at a loss about what to say about it. On the surface, it is the story of Maximilian and Carlota who were placed on the throne of Mexico as emperor and empress by the French: how that came about and what happened during their short-lived reign. So in that sense, "news from the empire" is news from the brief span of the Mexican empire. But the book is so much more: it spans the empires of Europe -- their pasts and their ends, their ruling families and their secrets -- as well.

Del Paso deluges the reader with the perspectives of dozens of participants and witnesses to the events of the 1860s, interspersed with the often crazy but equally often perceptive ravings of Carlota, who returned to Europe before Maximilian was killed, went mad (maybe was poisoned), was locked up in a castle, and lived another 60 years until 1927. Depending on whose story is being told, del Paso's language can be straight-forward, but more often than not consists of words piled on words, phrases piled on phrases, sentences piled on sentences. He is an amazing writer.

Maximilian was the brother of Franz Joseph, the ruler of the Austrian-Hungarian empire (although it was rumored his father was really Napoleon's son, the "king of Rome"), and Carlota (née Charlotte) was the daughter of Leopold of Belgium. For a complicated series of reasons, ostensibly involving debts of the Mexican government to several European countries and a desire to thwart the growing hemispheric interests of the United States, but really involving a grab for power, prestige, and empire, the French, under Louis Napoleon, decided to send troops to Mexico, make it an empire, and place Maximilian and Carlota on the throne. Needless to say, the Mexicans under Benito Juarez are not enamored of this plan, and continued to fight against the French, ultimately capturing Maximilian and sentencing him to death.

Who are some of the people who offer their perspectives? Emperors and empresses (Louis Napoleon and his wife Eugenie), aides to Maximilian, military officers (including a particularly vicious one), priests (including one obsessed with sex), a Mexican spy, a military man writing home to his brother who is more of a free thinker, those concerned with imperial protocol, and many many more. It takes a while sometimes to figure out who is "talking" and what his (usually his, not her) connection to the story is. But the star of the novel is Carlota, locked up in Bouchout Castle in Belgium, obsessing 60 years after Maximilian was killed about her love for Maximilian, her hatred for Maximilian, her belief that he is still alive, her knowledge that he is dead, and about the history of many of the European empires and the behavior of the families who led them -- and about what has happened in those 60 years, including many inventions (such as the typewriter and the airplane), many wars, most notably World War I, and the ends of several empires.

Towards the end of this 704-page tome, when del Paso has switched to some more strictly historical sections, he writes:

". . . one can always -- with talent -- push history to the side and, based on an event or some historical characters, construct a self-sufficient novelistic or dramatic world. The allegory, the absurd, the farce are some of the possible modes available to an author for creating such a world: everything is possible in literature, so long as you aren't pretending to adhere to history. But what happens when an author can't escape history? When an author can't consciously forget what has been learned. Or, better yet, when an author doesn't see fit to ignore the overwhelming mass of facts available on a subject -- crucial in terms of their influence over the lives, the deaths, the destinies of the characters in his tragedy, a tragedy of his own? In other words, what happens -- what can you do-- when you don't want to avoid history, but do want to achieve poetry? Perhaps the solution is . . . to try and reconcile everything that might be true in history using the exactitude available to invention. In other words, instead of pushing history to the side, place it alongside invention, alongside allegory, and even mix it together with some wild fantasy. . . . our poetic reinvention would go hand in hand with history: a history, however, whose authenticity -- as we must warn the reader -- as I must warn the reader -- cannot be guaranteed, except on the level of the symbolic." p. 676

How nice of him to tell the reader what he has been doing for the past 675 pages!

History is definitely one of the themes of this novel, and not just history but how the history of one place interacts with the history of another and with people's characters and actions -- how all this is interwoven.

At times I was overwhelmed by the density of del Paso's language, and at times I thought I would never finish this book, but by the end I was entranced by the world del Paso had created and in awe of his inventiveness and creativity, as well as his writing ability. As I said at the beginning, this is a remarkable book.

I read The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, which is a collection of very short fables. They ask questions such as "Was Penelope weaving while she waited for Odysseus to stop travelling or was Odysseus travelling while he waited for Penelope to stop weaving?" and "If faith moves mountains then would fewer people die in landslides if we abandoned our faiths?" Clever, witty, mildly amusing. Readers who didn't receive a classical education might find a few glancing references to Aesop or Horace whooshing over their heads but Monterroso mostly uses ideas familiar to inheritors of "Western" education, e.g. the lion as king, the wise owl, the cunning vixen, etc. 4.5*

P.S. The information given above for Complete Works and other stories is slightly off, as the English Translation includes only two of Monterroso's books: Obras completas (y otros cuentos) and Movimiento perpetuo, i.e. Complete Works (a joke title!) and Perpetual Motion. They're about 170 pages combined with intro.

Canción by Eduardo Halfon, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman

  

My rating:

Eduardo Halfon is one of the best known contemporary Guatemalan authors, who was born in Guatemala City in 1971, spent his first 10 years there until he and his family moved to the United States, where he attended North Carolina State University as an Industrial Engineering major, and then returned to Guatemala to teach literature at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City. His novels have won or were listed as finalists for several literary awards, including the Guatemalan National Prize for Literature and the International Latino Book Award, and in 2007 he was named one of the 39 best young Latino writers by the Hay Festival of Bogotá. Three of his previous novels have been translated into English and published by Bellevue Literary Press, namely The Polish Boxer, his most famous work, Monastery and Mourning, which are all works of autofiction centered on the life of his paternal grandfather, a Jewish man born in what is now Lebanon who fled with his family in 1917 to NYC to escape a devastating famine, and subsequently emigrated to Guatemala in the 1940s.

Canción, which is the Spanish word for ‘song’, begins with the intriguing sentence “I arrived in Tokyo disguised as an Arab.” The narrator, Eduardo Halfon, is invited to a Lebanese writers’ conference in Tokyo, as the organizers mistakenly believe that he is Lebanese, a country that he has never visited. Halfon tells the audience about his paternal grandfather, and he uses this to reflect on his PGF’s past life, particularly his kidnapping in 1967, a few years before Halfon was born. This episode occurred during the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 to 1996 and was sparked by a coup d’état by leftist soldiers who were in opposition to the military government that came to power after a covert operation by the CIA led to the overthrow of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arévalo, after he instituted land reforms to return land to peasants who were displaced after the United Fruit Company, a United States multinational corporation, was given their land by previous Guatemalan leaders. Halfon’s grandfather, a wealthy businessman, was kidnapped by guerrillas during an ambush, and he was ultimately released after his family paid a large ransom for his release. In addition to Halfon’s grandfather, the novel is mainly centered on two men: Benito Cáceres Domínguez (Beni), a friend of his grandfather’s and a military man who aids Halfon in his compulsory enrollment in the Guatemalan Army, who is a member of an elite wing of the army during the civil war which brutally massacred the members of an indigenous community in retaliation for a deadly assault on a group of soldiers; and Percy Amílcar Jacobs Fernández, nicknamed Canción, who was one of the guerrillas who kidnapped Halfon’s grandfather. By telling these men’s stories Halfon provides the reader with a compelling look into Guatemala during and after the civil war, and the devastation that it had on the country, and the members of one family.

Canción was a superb novel, the first one I’ve read by Eduardo Halfon, and I eagerly look forward to reading the two other books I own by him, The Polish Boxer and Monastery.

Thank you to Bellevue Literary Press for providing me with an uncorrected proof of Canción in exchange for an honest review of it.